>^5.^ ^ 



5Z3 




STATE OF NEW YORK 



War of Rebellion 

SERIES 



-* 



BULLETIN Na 1 



PUBLISHED BY THE STATE 



ALBANY 
.^^^ J. B. LYON COMPANY, STATE PRINTERS 



i902 




Book S9^ 



MY MEMOIRS 






OF THE 



Military History of the 
State of New York 



DURING THE 



WAR FOR THE UNION, J 86 J -65. 



BY 

COLONEL SILAS W. BURT, 

Former Assistant Inspector General, National Guard, State of New York, 



Edited by the STATE HISTORIAN and Issued as War of the 
Rebellion Series — Bulletin, No. t* 



ALBANY: 

J. B. LYON COMPAN-Y, STATE PRINTERS. 

3902. 






A 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
BeceivED 

...\;. 1 8 r::4 

nOCUMENTS DIVISION 



) 



PREFACE. 



WHILE serving in the military establishment of the State 
of New York during the war of 1861-65 and later — 
in all about eight years — I kept occasional notes of such events 
and transactions as I had any connection or acquaintance with, 
and copies of printed reports and other literature pertaining to 
military matters. I had then no formulated purpose as to the 
future use for these data. 

After the war ended I frequently urged up>on Governor Morgan 
the preparation by some competent literary man of an account of 
the remarkable military accomplishment by the State of New York, 
during his second administration in 1861-62; saying that, both from 
a public and a personal view, he could well afiford to pay liberally 
for such a permanent record. I think he did engage Dr. Cornelius 
R. Agnew of this city, who had been a member ofi his staff in 
1859-60, to prepare such an account, but for some reason it was 
never done, nor was I ever called upon for my data, which I had 
placed at the Governor's disposal. 

Unfortunately the greater part of my diaries, memoranda and 
other papers were lost in the fire that destroyed the Morrill Storage 
Warehouse in this city in October, 1881. This loss and the death 
of Governor Morgan in the spring of 1883 for a while put the 
matter out of my mind. Three years later, having collected some 
material but with a larger dependence on my memory, I began to 
write my memoirs of the relation of the State to the whole war 
and had concluded the part covered by Governor Morgan's admin- 



4 Annual Report of the State Historian. 

istration when other more urgent matters diverted my attention 
and the subsequent misplacement of the manuscript, etc., wholly 
arrested my completion of the work. The recent recovery of the 
manuscript and its acceptance by Mr. Hastings, State Historian, 
for incorporation in his annual report will preserve some aspects of 
an important part of the history of our State. In revising it now 
I have added a few notes and appendices regarding matters of inter- 
est that have recently occurred to me. These memoirs make no 
pretention to literary merit, and the desultory manner in which they 
were prepared has bred some repetitions that seemed necessary to 
illustrate topics in hand, but I trust they may furnish some material 
to the future historian who shall tell in fullness and in fitting phrase 
the glorious story of how the Empire State met a great crisis in the 
fate of the Nation. 

As in most of the events and transactions mentioned I had a part, 
their recital may have a personal or even egotistical flavor, but this 
I assume is so natural or incidental to such memoirs as not to require 
apology. 

I cannot determine whether I shall be able to continue the 
memoirs to the close of the war. The later period is not so impor- 
tant or interesting, except as to the draft riots of July, 1863, and to 
Ihe extraordinary and excessive expenditures of bounties to fill 
quotas of localities or furnish substitutes for drafted men. Very 
few regimental or other organizations were begun or completed 
during this later period and most of the enlistments were for the 
recruitment of regiments in the field. 

It is a somewhat melancholy thought that I am the sole survivor 

of those who sei-ved on Governor Morgan's "War" Stafif; I am 

however becoming used to finding myself " the last leaf ", that 

Holmes depicts, on quite a grove of trees. 

S. W. B. 
New York Cit\', April 25, 1902. 



INTRODUCTORY. 



AS these memoirs are necessarily personal to some extent, I 
will give a very brief account of how, without any previous 
military training or connection, I became absorbed in that branch 
of the New York State service for nearly eight years and during 
the most critical period of our national history. 

The project of a trans-continental railroad, first actively pressed 
by a Mr. Whitney, had in 1858-9 gained such strength in Congress 
as to make its early prosecution seem imminent. As a consequence, 
and at the instance of Mr. Horace Greeley, I spent a large portion 
of the year i860 in that part of the Rocky Mountain region then 
popularly known as " Pike's Peak ", though extending a hundred 
miles north of it. It was my idea that I could so acquaint myself 
with the larger topographical features of that region, which seemed 
to present the most formidable obstacle to the railway, as to make 
my engagement as locating engineer probable, if not indispensable, 
when the work began. Mr. Greeley in October wrote me that the 
coming Presidential election and the conditions of popular feeling, 
North and South, would indefinitely postpone the railroad scheme. 
We therefore returned to my fathers house in Kinderhook, N. Y., 
about January i, 1861. I was without employment and very anx- 
ious to obtain some business engagement, but the threatening 
attitude of the Southern States and the consequent business dis- 
Iractions and paralysis were insuperable impediments. 



6 Annual Report of the State Historian. 

On the 1 6th of February the New York State Legislature had 
appropriated the sum of $50,000 for the reHef of the people of Kan- 
sas Territory suflfering from the great drought of the previous year 
and my father had been selected as the agent to dispense this 
bounty. This task he completed in March and was settling his 
accounts with Comptroller Denniston at Albany, when, on April 
1 6th, the law was enacted, appropriating $3,000,000 for the organi- 
zation and equipment of volunteers to aid in repressing the rebellion. 
My father was requested to aid in auditing the accounts for expendi- 
tures under this act. 

In the meantime I remained at Kinderhook, my impatience with 
lack of work, being mitigated by some temporary employment and 
by that absorbing interest in the great national drama that held 
every one's attention more or less. Perceiving that the immediate 
field of the contest would be in Virginia, I cast about for a good 
map of that State on such a scale as would give a clear idea of mili- 
tary positions and movements, but could find none in the village. 
In the pursuit of my profession as a civil engineer I had collected 
many railroad and other maps, and fortunately had a series of the 
U. S. Coast Survey reports, containing charts of the Chesapeake 
Bay and other Virginia and Maryland waters and of the rivers flow- 
ing into them. I was thus enabled to construct a map on a scale 
of eight miles to the inch, permitting the representation of such 
topographical details as were known to me. On one of his visits 
home my father insisted on taking this map to Albany and he 
showed it to the Inspector General, Marsena R. Patrick, a former 
officer of the regular army, who took it to Governor Morgan and 
asked permission to appoint me as a clerk in his office, saying that 
while I would not be needed for map-making he believed that my 
education and experience would be very useful in the work of 



War of the Rebellion Series. 7 

organizing and equipping troops. The result was my appointment 
as a clerk in the Inspector General's office at a salary of one thou- 
sand dollars a year. 

I repaired to Albany to report for duty on Monday, May 27th, 
and found the city in great excitement on account of the funeral 
services of Col. Elmer E. Ellsworth of the nth N. Y. S. Vol. Infan- 
try, assassinated at Alexandria, Va., on the previous Friday, and 
whose body was then en route to Saratoga County to be interred 
there. 

I was very kindly received by General Patrick and began my 

service in the State military department, little thinking that it would 

continue for nearly eight years, and was also the beginning of a long 

term in the public service extending to this date. 

SILAS W. BURT. 
April 25, 1887. 



No. J. 
FIRST LEVY— APRIL 15 TO JUNE 30, 186J. 



IN the history of the great rebellion of 1861 no incident has been 
more dwelt upon than the absolutely unprepared condition of 
the Free States to meet the shock. There had been for many years 
premonitions of the great revolt, but successive compromises had 
relieved the situation, and the public mind at the North had finally 
concluded that despite the outcry there was no wolf across the bor- 
der. The Federal army was insignificant in numbers and whether 
by chance or design, its largest collected force was in Texas and 
so early as February i8th was treacherously surrendered to the 
rebel forces by General David E. Twiggs, its commanding officer, 
and was released only upon a parole that disarmed many loyal offi- 
cers at a time when they were sorely needed. By evident design 
the greater part of the small arms and munitions of war had been 
transferred to Southern arsenals before actual hostilities were begun. 
Very few of the Free States had an organized militia and where 
there was any such organization it was very feeble compared with 
the great mass of population. The Adjutant General of the Army 
reported on the ist of January, 1861, that the enrolled militia in the 
Free States (excepting Iowa and Oregon, from which there were 
no returns) comprised 2,197,236 men,* but of this formidable army 
on paper, not over one per cent was in any respect efficient for mili- 
tary purposes. The return from New York was 418,846, but not 

* Army Register for 1861, p. 39 



lo Annual Report of the State Historian. 

more than 15,000 of this number were uniformed and drilled and 
this State was in this respect far in advance of any other. 

Directly after the war of 1812-15 with Great Britain, the New 
York militia was organized upon a very pretentious plan which 
contemplated the annual muster and instruction of the whole arms- 
bearing population. But gradually as public interest abated, there 
crept in exemptions and commutations and such a perfunctory 
observance of the law as became farcical and indeed injurious to 
the public interests. The military allegiance of the citizens is the 
very cornerstone of the republic and in the words of the Federal 
Constitution " a well regulated militia " is " necessary to the security 
of a free state ". This political canon had been some fifteen years 
earlier more positively enunciated in the fortieth article of the first 
constitution of the State of New York, where after stating that " it 
is the duty of every man who enjoys the protection of society, to be 
prepared and willing to defend it ", the constitution " doth ordain, 
determine and declare, That the militia of this State, at all times 
hereafter, as well in peace as in war, shall be armed and disciplined, 
and in readiness for service." A long period of peace had naturally 
weakened the force of this principle and probably the isolation of 
our country from the other great poHtical powers and our tran- 
scendent increase in population and might will always be accounted 
a release from the burdens of military preparation such as rest on 
other nations. But in 1861 what was worse than lack of provision 
existed in the general contempt for military affairs encouraged by 
the ridiculous manner in which the great principle of military service 
had been treated. It was bewildering to suddenly find the very 
existence of the nation depending upon the derided militia of the 
country. 

In New York there were some fifteen infantry regiments, most of 
them comprised in the great cities, that could be immediately called 



War of the Rebellion Series. ii 

into service with some assurance of their efficiency. Of cavalry or 
artillery there was nothing available that was of value. The general 
staff had a paper organization and the chiefs of the departments, 
known as the " Governor's staff ", occupied positions more orna- 
mental than useful. Some attention to military affairs was given by 
the Adjutant General, Inspector General and the Commissary General 
of Ordnance, but the only service rendered by other officers of the 
staff was an attendance upon the Governor at all ceremonial occa- 
sions when their gorgeous uniforms enlivened the general sombre- 
ness of male attire in these sad-colored days. 

The session of the New York Legislature began on January i, 
1861, and from the very first day its proceedings were strongly 
colored by the great political events in the South, though no mili- 
tary legislation was accomplished until four days after the firing of 
the first gun at Fort Sumter, when a law was passed providing 
for an army of 30,000 men. On April 15th President Lincoln 
issued his proclamation calling into service 75,000 militia. This 
proclamation was accompanied by a circular letter to Governor 
Morgan, requesting him to detach from the militia of the State its 
quota of 13,280 officers and men to serve as infantry or riflemen 
for a period of three months to be rendezvoused at New York, 
Albany and Elmira. On the next day, April i6th, was enacted the 
law, subsequently known as Chapter 277, Laws of 1861, authorizing 
the enrollment and muster of the 30,000 volunteers " in addition to 
the present military organization, and a part of the militia thereof ". 

On the 18th Governor Morgan issued a proclamation making a 
call for seventeen regiments to serve three months to fill the quota 
of the State under the requisition of the Secretary of War of the 
15th. The proclamation provided that these regiments should be 
organized under the recent law, and by General Orders No. 13 of 



12 Annual Report of the State Historian. 

same date the details of organization were published. In fact none 
of the regiments so organized was mustered for three months to 
fill the quota under the call of April 15th; this was accomplished 
by the muster-in of the uniformed militia regiments for that period. 
On April 19th the famous Seventh Regiment left New York 
city for Washington with a total of 990 men and offtcers, a marvel- 
ous example of speedy recruitment. This notable event was suc- 
ceeded the next evening by a grand mass meeting in Union Square 
which presented such a unanimous and fervid demonstration of 
patriotism as to permanently fix the attitude of the metropolis dur- 
ing the contest and to have a great moral efifect throughout the 
whole North. An outcome of this significant meeting was the 
organization of the Union Defense Committee, composed of promi- 
nent and active citizens and provided with funds from the city treas- 
ury and private contributions. This patriotic body materially aided 
the recruiting and equipment of the militia and volunteer regi- 
ments sent from New York city before June ist and extinguished 
the last hope of the secessionists that they would find substantial 
sympathy there.* Besides the Seventh Regiment of militia there 
went from New York city the Fifth, Sixth, Eighth, Twelfth, Sixty- 
ninth and Seventy-first Regiments, from Brooklyn the Thirteenth 
and Twenty-eighth, from Kingston the Twentieth and from Albany 
the Twenty-fifth. All of these regiments left the State during April, 
most of them' before the 23d. There is now no doubt but that the 

* I find from data kept by me that all the expenditures by this committee 
were made between April 21st and July 31st, 1861, and there were paid from 
the City Fund $771,933.10 and from funds contributed by citizens $58,338.63, 
or a total of $830,271.73. Of this, $226,589.27 were spent for arms and 
accoutrements; $188^204 for account of the militia regiments, and $415,478.46 
for account of volunteer regiments. No part of this amount has ever been 
refunded by the United States because of defects and informalities in the 
accounts. 



War of the Rebellion Series. 13 

prompt movement of the militia regiments from Massachusetts and 
New York prevented the capture of Washington, which, otherwise 
almost defenseless, could have been readily taken by the Virginia 
rebels. It is useless to speculate as to the possible course of the 
war had the capital of the Union been captured at the very outset 
of the rebellion or as to the result on foreign countries of such a 
disaster. The militia forces of two loyal States prevented such a 
disaster and restored to public confidence and respect that long con- 
temned organization.''' 

* The promptitude with which the New York militia regiments were for- 
warded to the relief of Washington was warmly acknowledged by the Presi- 
dent, as shown by the following letters: 

War Department, 

Washington, April 26, 1861. 
To His Excellency E. D. Morgan, Governor of New York: 

Dear Sir: I have to repeat the acknowledgments of this Department for 
your very prompt and energetic action in sending forward the troops of your 
State. 

Very truly yours, 

Simon Cameron, 

Secretary of War. 

War Department, 
Washington, April 29, 1861. 
His Excellency E. D. Morgan, Governor of New York: 

My Dear Sir: I have yours of the 24th inst. This Department has again 
to acknowledge its many obligations to your Excellency fqf the promptness 
and despatch with which you have sent forward your troops for the defence 
of the capital. I have to request that ypu will not send any more to this 
point until you are further advised. I have the honor to subscribe myself, 

Very truly, 

Simon Cameron, t 
Secretary of War. 

t Simon Cameron was born in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, March 8, 
1799. He learned the printers' trade and at 21 years of age was editor of a 
paper in Doylestown and in 1822 was editing a paper in Harrisburg, Pa. 
He embarked in the banking business and constructed railways in central 
Pennsylvania where he laid the foundation for the great fortune which he 
subsequently accumulated. He was elected to the United States Senate in 
1845 as a Democrat, but later become identified with the " People's Party " 



14 Annual Report of the State Historian. 

The act of April i6, 1861, " to authorize the embodying and 
equipment of a Volunteer Militia and to provide for the public 
defense ", was a very faulty law and I think of doubtful constitu- 
tionality in devolving upon a board the authority and power to 
enroll, muster and discharge from service the troops to be raised. 
I believe this power resided solely in the Governor as Commander- 
in-Chief, but whether it did or not, the law should have recognized 
it in him or conferred it upon him. Instead of this the Governor 
was cojoined with the Lieutenant Governor, Secretary of State, 
Comptroller, Attorney General, State Engineer and Surveyor and 
State Treasurer, an awkward, incongruous and irresponsible body. 
The attempt to administer military affairs by a council or com- 
mission has seldom, if ever, been successful. In the present instance 
there were from the beginning a lack of harmony and an ofificial 
jealousy that interfered with the satisfactory administration of the 
law. The officers comprising the board were Governor Edwin D. 
Morgan, Lieutenant-Governor Robert Campbell, Secretary of State 
David R. Floyd-Jones, Attorney General Charles G. Myers, State 
Engineer Van Rensselaer Richmond and Treasurer Philip 
Dorsheimer. 

The Governor's staff as appointed on January ist were Adjutant 
General J. Meredith Read, Inspector General William A. Jackson, 
Engineer-in-Chief Chester A. Arthur, Judge Advocate General 
William Henry Anthon, Surgeon-General S. Oakley Vander Poel, 
Quartermaster General Cuyler Van Vechten, Paymaster General 

which subsequently consolidated with the Republicans. He was candidate 
for President in i860 and Mr. Lincoln recognized his power and ability by 
calling him to his Cabinet as Secretary of War. He resigned his position, 
however, January 11, 1862, and was appointed as Minister to Russia, which 
position he held until the following November, when he resigned. In 1866 
he was again returned to the United States Senate and returned for the 
fourth time in 1873, but resigned in favor of his son, James Donald Cameron. 
For forty-five years he was the acknowledged Czar of Pennsylvania politics. 
He died June 26, 1889. 



War of the Rebellion Series. 15 

Thomas B. Van Buren, Aides-de-Camp Edwin D. Morgan, Jr., 
Samuel D. Bradford and Elliott F. Shepard; Military Secretary 
John H. Linsly. 

The Legislature adjourned on April i6th, the very day that the 
bill became a law. The board of State officers formed by the act 
was immediately convened, the Governor being made its chairman 
and Mr. Linsly its secretary. The Governor's proclamation, already 
referred to, was made on the i8th, on which date the General Orders 
(No. 13) were issued providing for the immediate organization of 
seventeen regiments in four brigades and two divisions to fill the 
quota upon the requisition for three months men, but the orders 
provided that the force should be enrolled for the term of two years, 
unless sooner discharged. The organization of companies and regi- 
ments was that prescribed as the minimum in the regular army, 
except that the rank of second lieutenant was named ensign and 
assistant surgeon as surgeon's mate (and so continued to January, 
1863). The unit of organization was the company, which might be 
accepted when the rolls had been signed by not less than thirty-two 
nor more than seventy-seven persons and then transmitted to the 
Adjutant General, who, if the inspection ordered by him was satis- 
factory, might accept the company and order an election of the 
commissioned and non-commissioned officers by the members of 
the accepted company. This election was necessary because the 
law having necessarily recognized the force as a part of the militia,* 
it was subject to the second section of the eleventh article of the 
State Constitution, which provided for the election of all company 
and field officers and brigadier generals. After the election the 

* The U. S. Constitution contemplates the mihtia as a State institution and 
forbids any State " to keep troops in time of peace " without the consent of 
Congress. It is manifest that the only military force that can be authorized 
by a State is a part of the militia of that State. 



i6 Annual Report of the State Historian, 

accepted company was ordered to one of the three mihtary depots 
and the officers of any six or more companies, not exceeding ten, 
assembled at any depot, and indicating the choice of the same per- 
sons as field officers could hold an election for the same, who being 
commissioned would be put in command. 

The issue of the orders caused a general excitement throughout 
the State and recruiting was started in every county by active men 
aspiring to become commissioned officers. At the capitol at Albany 
there was a constant concourse of interested men from every part 
of the State, anxious to encourage or advise, or to procure commis- 
sions or the acceptance of companies on their own account or on 
behalf of friends. The Adjutant General's quarters were enlarged 
by adding the adjacent room, used as the Assembly Library, and 
a corps of clerks was employed to undertake the new and enlarg- 
ing afifairs of that office. Adjutant General Read was a man of 
good Philadelphia parentage who had married an Albany lady of 
wealth. He had an excellent education and had been prominent 
in local political matters as a leader of the Republican " Wide- 
awakes " the previous autumn. He would have made a fair officer 
in the piping times of peace, but the sudden exigencies of 1861 were 
too much for his capacity, mental or physical. His assistant. 
Colonel Duncan Campbell, was an indolent man who declined any 
part in the new work, addicting himself entirely to the old militia 
routine matters. General Read was industrious and zealous, and 
had as an official adviser Captain Edmund Schriver,* of Troy, and 



* Edmund Schriver was a native of Pennsylvania; graduated from 
West Point in the class of 1833 and was assigned to the Second 
Artillery. In 1838 he was appointed captain and assistant adjutant- 
general. Four years later he was commissioned captain in the Second 
Artillery, where he remained until July 31, 1846, when he resigned. 
From '47 to '52 he was treasurer of the Saratoga & Washington 



War of the Rebellion Series. 17 

late captain of the Second Artillery and Assistant Adjutant General, 
United States Army, who had resig-ne'd. Captain Schriver on May 
13th was made an aide-de-camp of the Governor vice Colonel 
Edwin D. Morgan, Jr., resigned. Later Major Lorenzo Sitgreaves,* 
United States Topographical Engineers, became attached to the 
headquarters as an adviser. Some aid was also received from Cap- 
tain Frank Wheaton, First U. S. Cavalry, on duty at Albany as 
recruiting officer.f 

Railroad Company, now a part of the Delaware & Hudson system, and from 
'47 to '61 he was treasurer of the Saratoga & Schenectady Railroad Com- 
pany and of the Rensselaer & Saratoga. He was president of the Rensselaer 
& Saratoga Railroad Company from '51 to '61. At the outbreak of the war 
he was appointed by Governor Morgan as an aide-de-camp with the rank of 
colonel. May 14, 1861, he was commissioned lieutenant-colonel of the 
Eleventh United States infantry and a year later was transferred to the stafif 
with the rank of colonel. March 13, 1863, he was commissioned inspector- 
general and participated in the battles of Chancellorsville and Gettysburg, 
being deputized by General Meade to carry to the War Department thirty- 
one battle flags and other trophies from that field. He was brevetted as 
brigadier-general and major-general of the United States army for merito- 
rious and distinguished services. He was retired January 4, 1881, and died in 
Washington, D. C, February 10, 1899. 

* Lorenzo Sitgreaves was a native of Pennsylvania. He graduated from 
West Point in the class of 1832, and served several years in the First artil- 
lery; he was out of the service two years; reappointed second lieutenant of 
topographical engineers in 1838, served through the Mexican War with dis- 
tinguished credit; was mustering ofificer at Albany at the outbreak of hos- 
tilities, but was transferred to the west, where he remained until July 10, 1866, 
when he was retired with the rank of lieutenant-colonel of engineers. Died 
May 14, 1888, at Washington, D. C, aged 78 years. 

t Captain Wheaton was the son-in-law of Col. Samuel Cooper, Adjutant- 
General of the U. S. Army, who on the outbreak of hostilities resigned that 
position to accept the similar one in the Confederate army. Col. Cooper was 
the son-in-law of the Confederate agent, ex-U. S. Senator Mason (Virginia), 
who, with his associate, ex-U. S. Senator Slidell (Louisiana), being on his 
way to England on the British passenger steamer, the Trent, was forcibly 
taken from it by Capt. Wilkes, commanding the U. S. steamer San Jacinto, 
and conveyed to Boston. The disavowal of this act by our government pre- 
vented the declaration of war by England. 

Captain Wheaton was born in Providence, R. L, May 8, 1833. He was 
educated as a civil engineer and was occupied in California and in the Mexi- 
2 



i8 Annual Report of the State Historian. 

The three depots were put under command of brigadier generals 
of the militia: General Charles Yates at New York, General John F. 
Rathbone at Albany and General Robert B, Van Valkenburgh at 
Elmira.* These officers were provided with ample staflfs for all pur- 
poses of administration. The headquarters of the Quartermaster 
General were at Albany and his department was represented at 
New York by General Chester A. Arthur, Engineer-in-Chief, and at 
Elmira by Captain Charles C. B. Walker. There being no com- 
missary officers in the militia organization in those days, the com- 
missariat was administered by the Quartermaster General's 
department. 

In every part of the State there was an excitement and bustle such 
as never had been known. Personal ambition and local pride and 
rivalry added their stimulus to the painfully vague promptings of 
patriotism. For the first time in half a century this sentiment was 
strongly aroused; we had been proud of our country's attractions^ 
wealth and progress and aggressively sensitive to all criticism of 
our resources, government, society, manners, etc.; but safe from 
foreign assault and in the conceit of our omnipotence and immuta- 
bility, our love of country had only a superficial expression and we 
knew neither its depth nor strength. Thei-e was much of pathos 
in the almost impotent rage of this passion when it was suddenly 



can boundary service from 1850 until he was appointed first lieutenant of 
the United States Cavalry, March 3, 1855. In July, 1861, he was commis- 
sioned lieutenant-colonel of the Second Rhode Island Volunteers, and as 
such participated in all the early engagements of the Army of the Potomac^ 
until his promotion to the command of a division of the Sixth corps, and as 
such saw much active service in the Shenandoah Valley. For gallant and 
meritorious services at the Opequon, Fishers Hill and Middletown, Va., he 
received several brevets, including that of major-general. In July, 1866, he 
was presented with a sword by his native State for gallant services in the 
battle of the Wilderness, Cedar Creek and Petersburg. He was retired the 8th. 
of May, 1897, as major-general of the United States Army. 
*See Appendix B. 



War of the Rebellion Series. 19 

aroused by the assault upon Fort Sumter; the reverberations of 
those guns sent a tremor to every true heart in the North and crys- 
tallized there the diluted and solvent sentiment of patriotism. Men, 
women and children with feverish ardor sought some means of 
expressing this newly roused passion which for a while over- 
whelmed all other feelings and interests. The starr}' flag of the 
Union was everywhere displayed and within a week or two every 
yard of bunting of appropriate hues in the country was exhausted. 
The old familiar airs, " Yankee Doodle ", " Hail Columbia ", etc., 
had a new and thrilling significance that brought tears to the eye 
and tremors to the voice. But all this enthusiasm and exaltation 
lacked the depth, the sincerity and tenacity that defeat, deferred 
hope, suffering, death and affliction subsequently breathed into it. 
The first ebullitions of patriotic fervor were somewhat frothy, and 
as will be hereafter noted it affected the character of the first levies 
of troops from this State. 

The board of State officers advertised for proposals to furnish 
uniforms and equipments which were to accord with those pre- 
scribed by the State regulations for the militia. It consisted of a 
jacket of dark army-blue cloth, cut to flow from the waist and to 
fall four inches below the belt; trousers of light army-blue cloth; 
overcoat of same, patterned after that of the United States Infantry; 
a fatigue cap of dark blue cloth, with a waterproof cover having a 
cape attached; two flannel shirts; two pair of flannel drawers; two 
pair of woolen socks, one pair of stout cowhide pegged shoes and 
one double Mackinac blanket. 

The first opportunity that the women foimd for a practical dis- 
play of their patriotic ardor was in making a gratuitous addition 
to this uniform in the shape of a white linen cap-cover with large 
cape attached falling over the shoulders. Such a headgear had 



20 Annual Report of the State Historian. 

been used by the English troops in India and was called a " Have- 
lock " after that celebrated general. It was thought our boys would 
need them under the fervid rays of the Southern sun, and sewing 
societies were organized that soon produced an ample supply, but 
1 do not think they were much used by our troops. The women 
soon found an occupation more necessary, if less pleasant, in the 
preparation of lint and bandages for use in field and hospital. 

The sudden demands by both general and state governments for 
military supplies soon exhausted the stocks on hand and much dif- 
ficulty was met in procuring uniforms and blankets. Messrs. 
Brooks Brothers of New York city made a contract to furnish 
12,000 sets of uniforms, consisting of jacket, trousers and overcoat, 
at $19.50 per uniform. In filling this contract and finding the sup- 
ply of army kerseys exhausted, they substituted other materials 
which proved in active service to be so inferior that great com- 
plaints were made and much scandal arose. It was at this time that 
we began to apprehend the meaning of the word " shoddy " which 
had recently come in vogue. It appeared that the 7,300 poor uni- 
forms had been made of gray satinet of poor quality and the gar- 
ments had been shabbily trimmed and sewn. The Military Board 
wrestled with this matter for some time and made formal inquiries 
that disclosed great indifference on the part of the contractors. It 
was further shown that four citizens of New York, of high character 
for integrity, who were selected by General Arthur to inspect these 
uniforms, namely, Wilson G. Hunt, George Opdyke, Charles Buck- 
ingham and John Gray, had given certificates of inspection after 
a most cursory and inadequate examination. The result was that 
Brooks Brothers furnished 2,350 additional uniforms to make good 
their deficiencies. The contracts made by the Military Board for 
army supplies gave cause for some scandals regarding the State 



War of the Rebellion Series. 21 

Treasurer, Dorsheimer, and Attorney General, Myers. Amid the 
mass of rumors and objurgations regarding the matter I never saw 
any reason to doubt the honesty of these officers. The desire to 
push the troops forward, the dearth of suitable materials and the 
general inexperience of all concerned would account for many 
defects without recourse to impugning personal motives. Never- 
theless these stories seriously injured the reputation of the officers 
named. 

There was great difficulty also in obtaining good blankets, and 
some of the specimens submitted were ridiculous mixtures of the 
coarsest wool, shoddy, hemp and cotton — I recall some that were 
actually dangerous as a source of slivers in handling. I brought to 
Albany as a sample a pair of five-pound blankets used by my wife 
and self on " the Plains " the previous year, but the contractors said 
they were unapproachable in quality in the market. 

There was not much trouble in obtaining the other clothing, or 
the leather accoutrements, and camp equipage, but the question 
cf proper arms was a very troublesome one. Those that the United 
States had gradually accumulated in its arsenals had been slyly 
transported to the Southern States by the late Secretary of War, 
John B. Floyd, an ardent secessionist. The output of our armories, 
public and private, was then comparatively small — indeed one of the 
former at Harpers Ferry, Va., was dismantled in June, having been 
in the hands of the rebels since April. It was evident that recourse 
to the European arsenals would become necessary, and agents were 
sent thither by the general and state governments to purchase 
muskets, and speculators also repaired thither to control if possible 
these needful weapons and " corner the market ". It was not a 
very creditable enterprise — this trading upon the necessities of an 
imperilled fatherland — but the man who has the money-making 



22 Annual Report of the State Historian. 

instinct generally slakes his miri sacra fames without scruples. All 
through the war there was no quality that exceeded in intensity the 
avidity of the military contractor, whether dealing in materials or 
men. Some of these private transactions in arms resulted in great 
public scandals, notably one connected with supplies to troops in 
Missouri in 1861, and they certainly were a boon to foreign nations 
in clearing their arsenals of antiquated and condemned weapons. 
New York escaped these scandals and bad bargains; so early as the 
24th of April an arrangement was made to send Mr. Jacob R. Schuy- 
ler of the firm of Schuyler, Hartley & Graham (of New York) to 
Europe to purchase 25,000 stands of arms. Governor Morgan wrote 
at the same time to Lord Palmerston, then the British premier, ask- 
ing him under the existing conditions of affairs in this country to 
sanction the purchases Mr. Schuyler was authorized to make. The 
refreshing simplicity of this letter is a notable illustration of our 
ignorance and anxiety in those first days of warfare. Lord Palmer- 
ston doubtless consigned the letter to the wastebasket and conceived 
Governor Morgan's avoidance of our minister at the court of St. 
James as an evidence that the principle of " State rights " was quite 
as orthodox in the Northern as in the Southern States. Under this 
arrangement Mr. Schuyler purchased for the State nineteen thou- 
sand Enfield muskets which were issued to the two years regiments. 
About the same date of the letter to Lord Palmerston an applica- 
tion was made to Governor General Head of Canada for leave to 
purchase Minie rifles there, who answered that he was prohibited 
by law from allowing arms and accoutrements to be taken out of 
that Province. 

One of the minor incidents of this early period was the excite- 
ment at Troy over the discovery that a man, named F. W. Par- 
menter, in that city was making a bullet machine upon the improved 



War of the Rebellion Series. 23 

ordnance patterns used at the United States Arsenal at Watervliet, 
N. Y., where Parmenter had been previously employed. Upon the 
rumor that he was a " traitor " and was making the machine for 
the use of the rebels, a committee of citizens took possession of it 
and the matter was brought before the Governor and his associates. 
After much investigation it was concluded that Parmenter was inno- 
cent of treason and his machine was purchased by the State for 
$1,700 and subsequently offered to the United States. I cannot 
now recall its ultimate disposition. 

Although it was intended that the thirty-eight regiments raised 
under the State law should all be organized as infantry, some 
arrangements were made under the advice and direction of Major 
Richard Delafield, United States Engineers, to procure for the State 
some rifled Parrott field pieces, and sixteen such were finally received 
and I believe are still in the State arsenals, having never been in 
service. There were some ambitious young men who desired 
authority to raise cavalry regiments, but this was refused. 

The recruiting throughout the State was very active, and so soon 
as the proper number were gathered at any point, being not less 
than thirty-two nor more than seventy-seven persons, they were 
inspected by order of the Adjutant General, usually by some militia 
officers, under whose supervision was held an election of the com- 
pany officers, commissioned and non-commissioned, and with rolls 
and elections duly certified, the company was given transportation 
to the nearest of the three general depots. In the enthusiastic feel- 
ing of the day, the Hudson River Railroad proposed to carry all 
the State troops free and other roads proposed a considerable abate- 
ment from' the usual fares. Later this ardor was supplanted by 
strictly business views, but under the orders of the War Depart- 
ment a maximum rate of two cents per recruit per mile was fixed. 
As will be hereafter shown, this rate was reduced in one instance. 



24 Annual Report of the State Historian. 

Upon arrival at the depots, these companies were sent to the 
respective barracks; at Albany these consisted of a large brick build- 
ing in the southwestern suburbs of the city, originally built for an 
industrial school, and to which were added sundry wooden struc- 
tures. The old city soon assumed the aspect of a garrisoned town; 
companies were arriving by trains or boat daily and proceeding in 
ordinary garb and unarmed but preceded by drum and fife, they 
passed to the front of the Capitol, and being there reviewed by the 
Adjutant General or some member of the Military Board, marched 
thence to the barracks. These finally proved to be inadequate, and 
my first official duty on May 28th was to select a camp for two 
regiments; after a survey to the north of the city, where nothing 
suitable was found, a choice was made of a plot on the land of a Mr. 
William E. Haswell, three miles south of the city,* and under the 
direction of General Patrick, assisted by the diagram in the United 
States Army Regulations, I succeeded in laying out the camp in 
excellent shape, being aided by my experience as engineer. The 
Sixteenth and Twenty-eighth Regiments were camped here for a 
short period and were the only ones at Albany ever under canvas. 
But it did not need tents to remind us of the great strife before us; 
the usually quiet streets were enlivened by soldiers on leave and 
officers, bright in fresh uniforms and bearing themselves with the 
air of heroes. A constant throng of visitors poured in and out of 
the Capitol intent upon every shade of interest, personal or public. 

Governor Morgan was then in his prime; a man of great bodily 
vigor, a sound judgment, of large business experience and also in 
public administration, being then in his third year as Governor. At 
this period he was hampered by the act that conferred joint powers 
in raising troops upon several officers besides himself, and it was 

* On what was known as the upper river road in the town of Bethlehem. 



War of the Rebellion Series. 25 

not until later that he was enabled to display to the best advantage 
his rare executive ability. Though Governor Morgan was more 
able as a politician than as a statesman, he possessed those business 
qualifications that were most useful in his position in those disturbed 
and distressful times. Much of interest and value and also much of 
twaddle has been written about the " War Governors ", but it is 
undeniable that success in the great contest for the Union depended 
very largely upon the ability and disposition of the men at the head 
of the State governments when that contest began. In the value 
of the services thus rendered Governor Morgan was second to none. 
On April i8th Major Marsena R. Patrick, President of the State 
Agricultural College at Ovid, came to Albany at the Governor's 
request and consented to act as general supervisor of disbursements 
and auditor of accounts payable from the fund of $3,000,000. (Chap. 
277, Laws of 1 861.) He was a graduate of the West Point Academy 
in 1835 and had served in the Florida and Mexican wars, having 
been in the latter contest chief commissary officer on General Wool's 
staff. He was a man of great firmness and integrity of character, 
well versed in military affairs and having friendly personal relations 
with all the army officers. He had resigned from the army and 
been engaged in other business for about ten years. His advice in 
regard to the propriety of purchases on military account, form of 
vouchers and their proper certification and on all matters concern- 
ing the equipment of troops was invaluable. My father was assigned 
as an expert accountant to assist General Patrick about May ist and 
I was engaged as an additional clerk on May 27th. Upon my 
father's resignation on August 15th to become a paymaster in the 
army, I succeeded as auditor of military accounts, serving as such 
until January i, 1869, ^^^ thus becoming acquainted with all matters 
connected with the raising of troops in the State of New York 
during the whole war. 



2.6 Annual Report of the State Historian. 

General William A, Jackson having resigned the position of 
Inspector General to take the colonelcy of the Eighteenth Regiment 
Infantry, New York State Volunteers, Major Patrick was appointed 
to the vacancy on May 17th. 

Although seventeen regiments would fill the President's requisi- 
tion on the State, there was no thought of relaxing efforts to raise 
all of the thirty-eight authorized by the law. So early as April 22d 
Governor Morgan proposed to the " Military Board " that the full 
complement of 30,000 troops named in the law be organized at 
once, saying " it was no time to delay organization until the enemy 
is at our door", and his motion was unanimously carried. It was 
however very difficult to induce the Washington Administration to 
recognize the excess beyond the call. Secretary Seward's opinion 
that the war would be closed within a few months was probably not 
shared by the President and the remainder of the Cabinet, still 
there was a great reluctance to accept the generous proffers of aid 
that came from the people and the States. It is true that these 
proffers were to some extent extravagant and that some were im- 
possible of fulfillment, but the conservatism at Washington went 
beyond this. There was from the start a lack of confidence in the 
people, a fear that the burdens of the war would be deemed intoler- 
able.* The discontent and threats of the comparatively few copper- 
heads at the North were deemed of an alarming importance and 
these rebel sympathizers had the satisfaction at least of making the 
war cost hundreds of millions and thousands of lives on both sides 
that might have been spared had the Administration absolutely dis- 

* The fact that the Governors were nearer to the people than the President 
and his official advisers in their isolation at Washington, vi^ill account in part 
for the greater zeal of the former in providing adequate military forces since 
they knew the prompt patriotic response the people would give to such 
demands upon them. 



War of the Rebellion Series. 27 

regarded their presumed influence. All through the war the people 
were far ahead of their rulers in this respect, and history exhibits 
no more signal instance of popular response to every appeal to 
patriotic endeavor than was shown by our people in those four 
years. The proffer of twenty-one regiments more than had been 
formally called for was not an illusory or irresponsible act ; the regi- 
ments were authorized by a State law that provided for their enlist- 
ment, equipment and support until ready for muster into the United 
States service, yet two weeks of earnest importunity were required 
before any favorable reply from the Secretary of War could be got. 

On April 29th Governor Morgan received a telegram from Gov- 
ernor Dennison of Ohio inviting him to a conference at Cleveland 
with Governor Curtin of Pennsylvania, Governor Morton of In- 
diana and Governor Yates of IlHnois, and General McClellan in 
command of the Ohio troops. Governor Morgan could not attend. 
The result of the conference was unimportant. 

All through the month of May recruiting continued quite lively. 
On the 1st the enlistment rolls of four Canadian companies were 
received, but which could not be accepted. The lack of competent 
instructors in drill and tactics led to an application to Secretary 
Cameron that the highest class of cadets at West Point be assigned 
for such purpose ; but though the regular time of graduation of this 
class was anticipated, the members were assigned immediately to 
active service in the field. 

There now arose another disagreeable and prolonged controversy 
with the War Department. The call of the President of May 3d 
indicated three years as the term of enlistment, while the State law 
had provided for a term of two years, but the Secretary of War on 
May 3d accepted the whole force of thirty-eight regiments for two 
years. Three days later the Secretary telegraphed that three-years 



28 AN^ruAL Report of the State Historian. 

men were wanted, and on the 15th wrote that it had been his inten- 
tion on the 3d to accept twenty-eight and not thirty-eight regiments 
and thus the whole controversy was reopened. Governor Morgan 
again represented the peculiarity of these regiments, raised, equipped 
and sustained under a State law and pointed out the great damage 
to the Union cause should it become necessary to disband ten regi- 
ments and have the State lose the moneys expended on them. It 
was not until June 12th that a definite order was given by Secretary 
Cameron to Colonel Wm. B. Franklin* to muster in these regiments 
for two years. This long uncertainty caused many complications, 
some of which may be mentioned beyond, and one of them was the 
popular confusion concerning the respective military jurisdictions of 
the general and State governments and the weakening of the author- 
ity of the latter. Among the regiments organized under the State law 

* General William B. Franklin was appointed to West Point from Penn- 
sylvania and graduated number one in the celebrated class of 1843, which 
contained such representative men as General Grant, Father Deshon, Gen- 
erals William F. Raynolds, Isaac F. Quinby, John J. Peck, Joseph J. Rey- 
nolds. James A. Hardie, Henry F. Clark, Christopher C. Augur, Joseph H. 
Potter, Charles S. Hamilton, Frederick Steele, Rufus Ingalls, Frederick T. 
Dent and Roswell S. Ripley. He served through the Mexican war as lieu- 
tenant of engineers, and as superintending engineer had charge of the exten- 
sion of the Capitol at Washington, including the new dome, uptil the out- 
break of the Rebellion, when he was appointed colonel of the Scooifla infan- 
try and immediately thereafter brigadier-general of volunteers, May 17, 1861. 
He was engaged in the battle of Bull Run and held commands in the vicinity 
of Washington and its defenses until the spring of 1862. when he was placed 
in command of a division of General McClellan's Army of the Potomac, and 
was promoted to command of the Sixth Army Corps, and as such partici- 
pated in the combat at West Point May 8, 1862, action at Goldings Farm 
June 28th, battles of White Oak Bridge, Savage Station, Malvern Hill. July 
4, 1862, he was appointed major-general United States Volunteers, and took 
part in the battles of Cramptons Gap, South Mountain, September 14, 1862, 
Antietam September 17, 1862, and Fredericksburg, where he commanded the 
left grand division consisting of the First and Sixth corps. Immediately 
after the battle of Fredericksburg General Franklin was selected as one of 
the victims for the failure of that disastrous afifair. Burnside claimed that a 
number of his generals, who were strong friends of General McCIellan, had 



War of the Rebellion Series. 29 

was the Eleventh Infantry, known as the " Fire Zouaves " and com- 
manded by Colonel Elmer E. Ellsworth, who had attracted some 
attention the previous year by the exhibition of a Chicago company 
drilled by him in what he called the " Zouave " tactics, introducing 
some novel acrobatic feats quite interesting to view, but of little real 
military value. Our journals had often contained articles concerning 
the French Zouave troops, their picturesque uniform, courage and 
elan in battle, and insouicance and deviltry amounting almost to 
insubordination. Great interest had been taken inCaptainEllsworth's 
exhibitions, and in the ignorance of the day he was accounted such 
a military genius that he had no trouble in rapidly recruiting a 
regiment in New York city, particularly from among that mass of 
reckless dare-devils who largely composed the volunteer fire corps of 
that day. These were habited in one of the brilliant, picturesque and 

not given him proper support, and on this frivolous and whimsical accusa- 
tion General Franklin was relieved of command and for a time discredited 
by the national administration. He was then transferred to the southwest- 
ern department and took part in the expedition of Sabine Pass; he was in 
command of the Nineteenth Army Corps and of the troops in Western Louis- 
iana from August 16, 1863, to April 29, 1864; participated in the Red River 
expedition and the battle of Sabine Cross Roads April 8, 1864, where he 
was wounded. From April 29 to December 2, 1864, he was on sick leave, 
but when on his way to Washington in order to obtain a command from his 
old classmate, General Grant, he was captured by rebel raiders at Gun 
Powder Creek between Philadelphia and Baltimore, but escaped the 
next night, July 12, 1864. He was president of the board for retired and 
disabled officers from December 2, 1864. He was breveted major-general 
of the United States Army for gallant and meritorious services in the field 
during the rebellion. He resigned from the volunteer service November 
10, 1865, and from the regular army March, 1866, having been appointed vice- 
president and general agent of the Colts Fire-Arm Manufacturing Company 
of Hartford, Conn., a position which he still retains. From January i, 1877, 
to December 31, 1878, he was Adjutant-General of the State of Connecticut. 
Since July 8, 1880, he has been president of the board of managers of the 
National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers. He was appointed com- 
missioner-general of the United States for the International Exposition at 
Paris, October 20, 1889, and later became grand officer of the French Legion 
of Honor. 



30 Annual Report of the State Historian. 

preposterous garbs that were so attractive during the first year of 
the war. This regiment elected its officers and proceeded to Wash- 
ington without orders from the Governor as Commander-in-Chief, 
and it required much vigilance to restrain further endeavors to 
ignore State authority. 

The predilection for gaudy and unusual styles of uniform did not 
last long and during the second and succeeding years of the war 
the plain, serviceable and inconspicuous light and dark-blue kersey 
clothing was adopted without demur. 

The decision of the government to accept troops for a period not 
less than three years bore heavily upon certain of our militia regi- 
ments that had been delayed in their equipment or in their recruit- 
ing to full ranks. These regiments expected to be accepted for 
three months on the same terms as those mentioned on page 12, 
but the rapid organization of volunteer regiments made it inexpe- 
dient to accept any short term troops. Our Second, Ninth, Four- 
teenth and Seventy-ninth regiments of militia reached Washington 
too late to be included in the call of April 15th and they were mus- 
tered into service " for the war", which was subsequently construed 
as for three years. These regiments were renamed as the Eighty- 
second, Eighty-third, Eighty-fourth and Seventy-ninth Regiments 
Infantry, New York State Volunteers. Their unexpected extension 
of service was very embarrassing to many of the privates and non- 
commissioned officers, who left homes and business with the expec- 
tation of a three months' absence only. My youngest brother had 
enlisted as a private in the Ninth Militia, presumptively for that 
short period and was quite disconcerted to find himself bound to 
serve " for the war". 

The military forces of the United States had been limited to the 
regular army and to the militia and so continued up to March, 1863. 



War of the Rebellion Series. 31 

The volunteers were considered a part of the militia; the two years' 
regiments from New York were expressly designated as militia in 
the law that authorized their organization. They were thus subject 
to the provisions of the United States Constitution " reserving to 
the States the appointment of the officers " of the militia. By the 
Constitution of the State of New York all company, field and gen- 
eral officers below the rank of major-general were elective, the 
major-generals being appointed by the Governor. In times of 
peace this method of selection is not very objectionable; the officers 
are usually elected from those having some experience in the ser- 
vice, and if this is lacking they obtain it after election without any 
great risk to the general welfare or to the comfort and safety of 
their commands. It is also probable that this democratic method of 
selection is essential to the very existence of our organized militia 
in the form of uniformed companies and regiments. It was not 
however a successful method in these thirty-eight regiments, except 
as aiding their rapid recruiting and as not introducing any new 
principle at a time when it was deemed of prime importance not to 
shock public sentiment in the slightest degree. The officers elected 
were not examined as to competency or conditioned in any respect; 
they were commissioned without question. The result was that 
about two-thirds of these officers failed to serve their full term of 
two years, having been discharged or having resigned in the mean- 
time; at least one-third of them resigned within the first six months. 
These results were not wholly attributable to the mere fact of elec- 
tion; the qualities that are most efficient in recruiting soldiers are 
generally those least desirable in their commanders. The good 
nature, sociable, easy manners, good-fellowship and other such traits 
as attract the great mass of mankind are generally incompatible with 
the power to enforce subordination and discipline. This failure in 



32 Annual Report of the State Historian. 

active service of those officers most successful in recruiting- was 
not confined to these early regiments but obtained in all the subse- 
quent levies where commissions were conferred upon inexperienced 
men who had simply recruited the requisite number of privates. 
Of course the least qualified of these officers, sooner or later, 
" dropped out " in the field, but it was an expensive process in 
many ways. While such officers did remain in command their men 
suffered through their inefficiency, and the injurious results con- 
tinued in force after they had resigned or been discharged. To the 
foreign critic the greatest defect in our volunteer armies was the 
laxity of discipline and it is doubtful if this were wholly counter- 
balanced by the higher intelligence or motives of our troops as 
compared with those of European armies. 

Not only were these unversed officers unable to properly dis- 
cipline, drill and instruct their men, or to conduct and maneuvre 
them in the field, but with few exceptions they were ignorant as to 
all matters touching the health and comfort of the men under their 
charge. There were among their number, men who had had some 
training or had the ability to quickly acquire the requisite knowledge 
and to enforce military discipline, and as the " law of survival, etc.," 
operated these were recognized, promoted or transferred to other 
commands. From these thirty-eight regiments about twenty brig- 
adier generals were selected and some of these again promoted to 
be major generals. 

In harmony with the general plan adopted. General John A. Dix 
had been appointed major general and on May 17th a General 
Order (No. 41) was issued by Adjutant General Read, organizing 
the First Division of State Volunteers under command of General 
Dix, to consist of two brigades and directing General Dix to hold 
an election for brigadier general of each brigade by the field officers 



War of the Rebellion Series. 33 

therein respectively. This brought about a distinct collision between 
the State and General Government, in which the former had the 
right and the latter the victory. There can be no doubt but that 
all the volunteers accepted from the States were so accepted as 
miUtia, and that as such the appointment of their officers was 
reserved to the States and so exercised as to regimental officers up 
to the end of the war. There can be no doubt but that the authority 
of appointment reserved to the States extended to general officers 
also. It was however seen at an early day that this was one of the 
points where strict adherence to the text of the Constitution must 
give way to the supreme safety of the nation. All through the war 
it was apparent that there must be a certain elasticity of construction 
and perhaps a certain disregard of the text of the Constitution, if 
the union of the States was to be preserved. It was fortunate that 
the cases where such a strain was necessary were very few, since 
infrequent as they were they gave a coherence to the hollow and 
despicable clamor of the " Copperheads " during the struggle, and 
have since encouraged a tendency toward centralization in our 
governmental system that is fraught with evil possibihties. 

It was evident that if the troops of each State were organized into 
brigades and divisions commanded by generals elected by these 
constituencies and commissioned by the State authority, the control 
of them by the general administration would be seriously weakened. 
The several armies instead of being each a compacted force would 
represent mere localities, while the jealousies and rivalries between 
the several brigades and divisions would be shared by their respec- 
tive States and counteract the closer union that the war was con- 
ducing to. There wt)uld have been repeated the weakness of the 
allied armies of the old German Empire, when a score of potentates 
furnished their distinct quotas. In general orders from the War 
3 



34 Annual Report of the State Historian. 

Department issued May 4th, giving the plan of organization of the 
volunteer forces called into the service of the United States by the 
President, it was announced that the general officers and their staffs 
(except aides-de-camp) would be appointed by the President with 
the advice and consent of the Senate. This assumption of authority 
caused much discussion and even alarm on the part of patriotic 
men, who feared that it was the precursor of such encroachments 
by the central government as would in the end destroy our federal 
system as originally constructed under the Constitution. The vast 
increase of patronage by the President was also represented and 
by some it was held that the States would resent such a deprivation 
of their constitutional rights. On the other hand some attempts 
were made to show that the volunteers were not a part of the militia 
and therefore that the constitutional reservation to the States did 
not apply to their officers. I was much interested in this discussion 
and finally became convinced that these troops were a part of the 
militia; the Constitution gives Congress the power "to raise and 
support armies " and " to provide for calling forth the militia to 
execute the laws of the Union, suppress insurrections and repel 
invasions," and these are the only powers granted to the United 
States in regard to land forces. The violation of the laws of the 
Union and the insurrection by the .Southern States strongly indi- 
cated a resort to the militia, and the result was that while the 
increase of the regular army was almost inappreciable, there were 
millions of volunteer militiamen engaged in suppressing the 
rebellion. The very fact that the appointment of all regimental 
officers was left with the States indicates the nature of the force. 
It was plainly an exigency when the rigid lines of the Constitution 
had to swerve in the interests of self presentation. There was now 
quoted the old axiom, soon to become trite, " inter arma siknt leges." 



War of the Rebellion Series. 35 

The Governor had appointed as major generals of the State 
volunteers, John A. Dix and James S. Wadsworth, and Lieutenant 
Governor Campbell was sent to Washington to procure their recog- 
nition, but the President through Secretary Cameron, announced 
his irrevocable determination to appoint general officers, and not 
to accept troops under any other conditions. 

So rapid were the enlistments for these first regiments that the 
entire number of 30,000 men was accepted within three weeks from 
the first call, and on May 7th the Governor issued a general order 
announcing such consummation and that no additional force could 
be accepted, and advising that " no further expenditure of time or 
means may be needlessly incurred by the patriotic citizens of the 
State in further efforts for organization." The members of the 
Military Board were not unanimous in approval of such an 
announcement. Mr. Jones, Secretary of State, insisted that in view 
of the probability that troops would be required beyond existing 
calls, it would be bad policy to discourage or disband any organi- 
zations, and that it was not wise to weaken any patriotic endeavor. 
However, these irregular organizations were being recruited with- 
out the authority of the State, and the Board felt compelled to 
discountenance them. Tliey were subsequently a source of much 
trouble to the State and Federal administrations. 

Before all of the two-years regiments reached the field, there were 
two tragical events in which some of them were concerned. Some 
allusion was made on page 29 to the Eleventh Regiment, known as 
the Fire Zouaves, commanded by Colonel Ellsworth. This regi- 
ment being on May 24th at Alexandria, Va., Colonel Ellsworth 
directed one Jackson to take down from the stafif on top of his 
hotel a secession flag flying there, and not being obeyed, the 
Colonel went himself to haul it down and was shot by Jackson and 



2,^ Annual Report of the State Historian. 

immediately avenged by his men, who riddled the assassin with 
bullets. Ellsw'Orth was the first victim of the war, and his body was 
conveyed with much ceremony for burial at his father's home at 
Mechanicville, N. Y. Although much was popularly expected of 
him, he was simply a drill-master, and so far as fame is concerned 
was fortunate in his early death, but that event made a marked 
impression that the war was a stern reality. This impression was 
deepened by the unfortunate affair at Big Bethel, Va., on June 
loth, where the First, Second, Tliird, Fifth and Seventh Regiments, 
New York Volunteers, were prominently engaged. General 
Butler, in command of the Union forces at Newport News, had 
intended to surprise the rebels under General Magruder, and the 
New York regiments were put in motion before daybreak, when 
there occurred such a calamity as might have been expected from 
troops and officers so green. Tlie Seventh Regiment, under 
Colonel Bendix, coming upon the Third under Colonel Townsend 
in the dawn, mistook it for a rebel force and fired upon it, killing 
several men and wounding more. This fiasco gave the alarm to 
the enemy and so upset the Union plans that the subsequent attack 
w^as not only a failure but a signal disaster. Among the killed were 
Major Theodore Winthrop,* New York Volunteers, acting on 
General Butler's stafif, and a young author of great promise, and 
Lieutenant John T. Greble,t Second Regiment, United States 

* Theodore Winthrop was born in New Haven, Conn., September 22, 1828. 
He graduated from Yale 1848, and the following year went to Europe, where 
he remained until 1851. He was admitted to the bar in 1855. Then visited 
California and Oregon and made a survey of a canal road across the Isthmus 
of Panama. In the campaign of 1856 he was an ardent and eloquent Fre- 
mont orator. Before the war he had established his reputation as an author, 
but at the outbreak of hostilities he enlisted in the Seventh New York. For 
a time he acted as military secretary to General B. F. Butkr, with whom he 
planned the attack on Little and Big Bethel, at the latter of which he lost 
his life while rallying his men June 10, 1861. 

tjohn T. Greble was a native of Pennsylvania. He graduated from the 
military academy in 1854 and was assigned to the Second Artillery and as 



War of the Rebellion Series. 37 

Artillery. Although the whole affair in its dimensions and casual- 
ties was a mere skirmish compared with the great battles to come, 
it was in that early day an engagement of the first importance and 
the deaths of the two estimable young men above mentioned brought 
a chill to many a home where the son had put on the blue uniform 
or was preparing to do so. It gave a shocking realism to a contest 
that so far had been an ebullition of excitement without the dark 
shadow of sudden death on the battlefield to overcast it. It was 
the reaction from this that made us magnify the successes of 
General McClellan in the western part of Virginia, which, however 
important in themselves or as inspiring our hopes, were not such 
guarantees of military qualities as were assumed. 

By the end of June the thirty-eight regiments authorized by the 
State law were in the field; nineteen from the New York depot, 
nine from the Albany and ten from the Elmira depot. Their 
organization was that of the regular army with some tincture of 
the old militia forms and nomenclature. Reference has been made 
to the term " ensign " for second lieutenant; the assistant regimental 
surgeon was termed " surgeon's mate; " both these were afterwards 
given the regular title. Surgeon General Samuel O. Vander Poel 
exhibited high administrative qualities, both in regard to the exami- 
nation of recruits and their sanitary conditions in barracks, and also 
in the selection of surgeons and their mates. Of course through 
inexperience these matters fell short of what was subsequently 
accomplished. Less than thirty-seven per cent of the medical 
officers of these regiments resigned or were discharged before the 
end of their terms, a very favorable contrast with the other com- 
missioned officers. 

first lieutenant covered the retreat of our defeated troops with the fire of his 
own battery at Big Bethel. He was killed June 10, 1861, aged 2-] years. For 
the service he rendered in this engagement he was brevetted captain, major 
and lieutenant-colonel. 



38 Annual Report of the State Historian. 

Each regiment was entitled to a chaplain, and all but one or two 
took one to the field, though many did not retain them. It was a 
fact that some of these chaplains were frauds, not being even 
ordained ministers, but rollicking acquaintances of the officers or 
newspaper reporters who sought this easy and well paid position 
in order to have favorable opportunities for reportorial observation. 

Each regiment also had a paymaster to pay ihe troops and officers 
while in the State service and not accompanying them to the field. 
Paymaster General Thomas B. Van Buren was not a good business 
manager and the pay-rolls were the most confusing and difficult 
of the vouchers that I examined. 

Considering all things, I think the supplies for these troops were 
of fair quality, and their commissariat while in barracks was well 
selected and managed. I kept at general headquarters a running 
account of military property, crediting the contractors with all 
deliveries to the quartermaster and ordnance departments, and 
those departments with their issues to the troops. There was 
great difficulty in having all these issues conducted in accordance 
with the army regulations, which were unknown and even 
unattainable to the great mass of officers concerned. In the subse- 
quent adjustment of accounts between the State and general 
governments many defects and omissions in the forms had to be 
disregarded. 

Though neither John A. Dix nor James S. Wadsworth, who had 
been appointed by the Governor as major generals of these troops, 
was recognized as such by the United States authorities. General 
Dix was appointed major general of volunteers with rank from May 
1 6th by the President, and General Wadsworth* was appointed a 

* James Samuel Wadsworth was born at Geneseo, N. Y., October 30, 1807. 
He was educated at Harvard and studied at the Albany Law School, com- 



War of the Rebellion Series. 39 

brigadier general of volunteers with rank from August 9th, so that 
both these accomplished gentlemen entered the active service. 

I had official opportunities to acquaint myself with the character 
of all the successive levies for the service made in New York and 
found them naturally affected in character by the changing con- 
ditions and spirit of the times. These first regiments were raised 
during the foaming excitement of the early days when it was 
generally thought that the war would be concluded within a few 
months, and its serious aspects of privation, discomfort, danger, 
suffering and death were scarcely contemplated. It was to be a 
picnic on a grand scale, with brass buttons, tinsel, silk banners and 
music to enliven it, and the fun to be hallowed by its patriotic pur- 
pose. The adventurous and frolicsome were attracted while the 
apparently temporary needs of the country did not demand any 

pleting his course with Daniel Webster. He never practiced his profession, 
however, but devoted his time exclusively to the management of his vast 
estates in Livingston county, which amounted to 15,000 acres. In 1852 he 
was elected president of the State Agricultural Society, with which up to the 
time of his death he was conspicuously identified. He supported the Free 
Soil party in 1848, but was a presidential elector on the Republican ticket 
1856 and i860. He was a delegate to the peace convention in Washington in 
1861, and at the beginning of the war was one of the first men who was 
willing to surrender the comforts of a luxurious home to the deprivations 
and sufiferings of the field. When communication with Washington was sus- 
pended, he chartered two ships at his own expense, loaded them with provi- 
sionsand accompanied them to Annapolis. He was at the battle of Bull Run 
as volunteer aide to General McDowell. March 15, 1862, he was appointed 
military governor of the District of Columbia. That fall he was the unsuc- 
cessful candidate for Governor of New York, nominated by the Republicans. 
He took part in the battle of Fredericksburg as a division commander and 
displayed great military judgment. At Gettysburg his division was the first 
to engage the enemy and his losses aggregated 2,400 out of 4,000 
men. He was one of the few generals who voted in favor of pursuing the 
enemy after Pickett's disastrous charge on the 3d of July. On the reorgan- 
ization of the Army of the Potomac he was assigned to the command of the 
fourth division of the Fifth Corps, which constituted part of his old com- 
mand. May 6, 1864, at the battle of the Wilderness, he was shot in the head 
and lingered for two days. 



40 Annual Report of the State Historian. 

sacrifice from the steady and thoughtful men, who had other 
responsibihties upon them. There were some few who, foreseeing 
the deadly character, if not the duration of the strife, put aside all 
business, social and domestic claims and entered the ranks or 
accepted commissions in April and May, 1861. The greater num- 
ber, however, did not expect or were not prepared for the stern 
ordeal of defeat, delay, suspense and painful toil that awaited them. 
But when these regiments were later subjected to drill and to 
the discharge of everyday duties and were seasoned by skirmishes 
and battles, by victories and defeats, they rendered good service and 
sustained the honor of the State. 

When the levy was completed there was a large number of 
enlisted men in detached companies and other fragmentary organi- 
zations throughout the State, which subsequently became part of 
the second levy, though the actual recruitment should be credited 
to the first lew. 



No. 2. 
SECOND LEVY— JULY \, 1861, TO MARCH 31, I86Z 



BY the 1st of July all of the thirty-eight regiments raised under 
the State law had been mustered into the United States 
service and had been despatched to the seat of war. There remained 
the settlement of many accounts for materials and service, and these 
under the general direction of General Patrick were carefully 
audited and paid mostly within a month's time. The Military Board 
continued its sessions, which were largely engrossed by attempts 
to fix or evade the responsibility for the inferior uniforms accepted 
under the contracts. As before said, I have never believed that any 
of the members of this Board or any other State officers were 
corrupt in these transactions. The failure to secure the best 
clothing, etc., may be fairly attributed to the extent of the pur- 
chases, the hurried manner of their initiation and completion and 
the almost absolute inexperience of all concerned in them. To 
this may be added the divided and personally vague responsibility 
of a cumbrous board which the Legislature had constituted throug^h 
that jealousy of the '' one-man power " of the Executive which 
has been so characteristic in our State governments. Within the 
board itself this jealousy raged and did further public injury. It 
was evident that certain military authorities could be far better 
exercised by the Governor alone as commander-in-chief than by 



42 Annual Report of the State Historian. 

this motley board, but on several occasions resolutions to confer 
such authority upon him were voted down. It is not strange that 
of the members of that board the Governor alone retained his 
political influence. 

About the middle of the month. Attorney General Myers and 
Treasurer Dorsheimer, as a committee of the board, visited the 
regiments about Washington and reported certain deficiencies in 
equipment which were repaired. 

I can recall vividly those three first weeks in July which followed 
our engrossment in military preparation. There was nothing very 
exciting going on in the field; General McClellan continued his 
several successes in Virginia and defeated the rebels in an engage- 
ment at Carricks Ford on July 12, thus clearing Virginia west 
of the Blue Ridge. These events were cheerful, but their larger 
importance was in the establishment of McClellan's fame that led 
to his subsequent promotion as general-in-chief. The concentra- 
tion of troops about Washington under General McDowell was the 
most significant event, and we now believed that city safe and the 
suppression of the rebellion certainly at hand. Our Albany offtcials 
were mostly strong partisans of Secretary Seward and probably 
imbibed his optimistic opinion that the contest would not exceed 
a few months. We underlings, whose retention in service depended 
upon continued hostilities, met in the Adjutant-General's office in 
those summer evenings and discussed the probabilities of early dis- 
missal and the need of searching for employment. Daily in my 
own office in the southeastern corner of the second story of that old 
capitol I sat by the windows looking out upon the trees and lawn, 
meditating what means of livelihood I should adopt when the brief 
rebellion collapsed. I was a type of so many others soon to be 
stricken and shocked. 



War of the Rebellion Series. 43 

The papers began now to announce the early movement of our 
army upon the force of rebels massed a few miles west of Wash- 
ington, commanded by General Beauregard. I have mentioned 
that these first levies of troops contained some light material, the 
scum of patriotic ferment, the adventurous and thoughtless who 
viewed the contest as an exciting picnic. So now we heard of the 
Congressmen and others who were going to accompany our army 
in carriages, supplied with lunch baskets and wine, as if on a 
pleasure jaunt. What indeed could be more satisfactory and 
pleasurable than to see our valiant troops " bag " these ill-advised 
rebels? What could resist our army panoplied in the majesty of 
the Union, the power of the Right, the invincibility of Freedom? 
The war correspondents with glowing phrase — alas so soon to 
become trite and inexpressive — depicted the advance of the army 
on July 1 6th, accompanied by its hordes of non-combatants, mov- 
ing slowly as became its stateliness, its irresistible power. Since 
May 27th, when placed in command. General McDowell had been 
disciplining his troops as best he could, though as the larger portion 
had reached him within four weeks before his advance, the drilling 
had been meagre. We, however, had such absolute confidence in 
our cause that any such lack of preparation seemed very trivial. 
Day by day the papers gave us the picturesque incidents of the 
march with flattering prognostications of victory. Even our news 
on the morning of Monday the 22d was very encouraging, but 
about noon of that day dispatches reached Albany first that there 
had been a check and then the terrible announcement of defeat — a 
rout — a retreat — then in an exaggeration quite as vivid as that of 
our invincible advance came the intelligence of disorganization and 
panic, of the flight towards Washington, of a demoralized mob, of 
intermingled " warriors " and civilians crying " the devil take the 



44 Annual Report of the State Historian. 

hindmost ", and of the probable capture of the capital. What an 
agonizing shock! At the first there was humiliation, shame, 
despair. We were still in the frothy sentimental stage of patriotism 
of those early days — quickly depressed, but fortunately as quickly 
recovering from the dejection. In a day or so, our thoughts were 
again bent on the future and the means to shape it. 

Now that we look back upon the war as a whole, the significance, 
indeed the fitting purpose of Bull Run as the first great link in the 
chain of events can be recognized. The panic of our troops was 
no stain upon our manhood; fresh, undrilled troops, many of them 
with terms of service about expiring, led by regimental and com- 
pany officers quite as fresh and uninstructed, did not in any proper 
sense make an army. We know now that the rebel troops were 
quite as panicky and disorganized and unable to take any advantage 
of the retreat of our men. The ridiculous features of that rout 
can now be enjoyed — the capture of the picnicking Congressmen; 
the early retreat of the troops whose service expired in the midst 
of the battle and as General McDowell reported, " marched to the 
rear of the sound of the enemy's cannon." Such was the cowardly 
feat of a New York city battery commanded by Captain James 
Lynch, and it is a signal evidence of the catholic charity and liber- 
ality of the Tammany party that less than four months later it 
elected Captain Lynch to the lucrative office of sheriff of New York 
city and county. 

The disaster at Bull Run convinced us that a single battle would 
not extinguish the rebellion, and that the majesty of the right must 
be sustained by well organized and trained battalions. We now 
extended the probable term of the war from six months to a whole 
year. 

Congress had on July 4th convened in special session ending on 
August 6th, the legislation being almost wholly military and finan- 



War of the Rebellion Series. 45 

cial. Provision was made for the calling of a volunteer force not 
to exceed five hundred thousand men, for an increase and reorgani- 
zation of the regular army and for the employment of the militia 
upon the call of the President. The first of these acts passed July 
22d, two days after the disaster at Bull Run, and under its pro- 
visions the President made an immediate call for volunteers, and 
Governor Morgan issued on the 25th a proclamation calling " for 
a volunteer force of twenty-five thousand men to serve for three 
years or during the war," 

At this time the three-months militia from this State had either 
returned or were on their way home. The volunteer regiments 
in the field comprised the thirty-eight two-years regiments organ- 
ized under the State law, the four militia regiments (Second, Ninth, 
Fourteenth and Seventy-ninth) that had been forced to enlist " for 
the war (vide page 30, supra) and eight irregularly organized regi- 
ments subsequently remanded to the State supervision, of which 
more anon; and three batteries of light artillery, a total force of 
about 40,000 men. Of this force there had been engaged at Big 
Bethel five of the two-years regiments (vide page 36, supra) and 
at Bull Run seven of the two-years regiments, viz.: the Eighth, 
Eleventh, Thirteenth, Eighteenth, Twenty-seventh, Thirty-first and 
Thirty-eighth, and one of the irregular regiments (subsequently the 
Thirty-ninth Infantry) were engaged, but the aggregate casualties 
in all these would not reduce the number on July 25th much below 
the 40,000 above given. 

Much care was given to the preparation of the general orders 
for the organization of the additional regiments, in which I had 
a share. Fortunately the Governor was supreme now, the function 
of the Military Board appertaining only to the two-year troops. 

General Order No. 78, issued on July 30th, provided for a regi- 
mental organization of ten companies as fixed by General Order 



46 Annual Report of the State Historian. 

No. 15, U. S. Army (May 4, 1861), for the regular army. Tlie 
depots of organization at New York, Albany and Elmira were con- 
tinued.* When thirty-two volunteers had been inspected and 
accepted, they were authorized to elect by ballot a captain and 
lieutenant of the company, the remaining officers to be nominated 
when the company was completed. The field officers were to be 
appointed by the Governor, as commander-in-chief, and all officers 
had to pass a military examination before acceptance. It will be 
observed that so far as the company officers were concerned the 
plan of election by the recruits was continued. There was still 
a general recognition that all the volunteer troops were a part of 
the militia of the State. Then, too, there was the advantage that 
this contingency of a commission was a great incentive to recruiting, 
and in every instance within my observation the person who 
enlisted the necessary numiber of recruits, received their votes for 
the office. Recruiting was in many cases expensive; though the 
general government reimbursed the officers for a part of these 
expenses it was usually the minor part only. The declination of 
the general government by general orders of May 7th to receive 
any further troops, had discouraged recruiting in the rural districts, 
as also did the organization in the cities of many irregular organi- 
zations which for awhile occupied an anomalous position, their serv- 
ices in many cases being accepted by the United States, into whose 
service the enlisted men were mustered, while the officers remained 
without conmiissions. Among these regiments were those included 
in what was called the " Sickles' brigade," composed of five regi- 
ments raised in New York, of one of which Daniel E. Sickles was 
the colonel (subsequently the Seventieth Infantry), and who was 
appointed by the President a brigadier general on September 



See Appendix B. 



War of the Rebellion Series. 47 

3d. General Sickles and other officers connected with these 
regiments were contemptuous of the State authority, in the 
belief that they would be accepted as United States Volun- 
teers and thus be superior to the State troops. Of course this 
was absurd, since there were only three recognized classes of 
troops — the regular army, the militia, volunteer or drafted and 
mustered into service for three years, and the ordinary militia 
organizations called into service for short periods. There was evi- 
dently some looseness of opinion on this subject in the War Depart- 
ment since authorizations were issued thence to persons to raise 
regiments independently of the State authority, but such author- 
izations ceased after May 31st, and on September 3d general orders 
(No. 95) of the War Department directed all persons who had 
received authority to raise volunteers in the State of New York, to 
report unreservedly to Governor Morgan, and that all officers of . 
regiments, etc., " raised in the State of New York, independent of 
the State authorities " could receive commissions from the Gov- 
ernor. Thus was fortunately terminated a practice that would have 
brought most embarrassing results. The conflict between the two 
governments in recruiting in each State, the jealousies of the 
officers and other complications would have been disastrous, irre- 
spective of the grave constitutional questions raised. Subsequently 
the colored troops raised in ths^ insurrectionary States were termed 
United States Volunteers, but were in fact a temporary increase of 
the regular army. Sixteen infantry regiments were thus remanded 
to the State authority, and so far satisfied the quota allotted to New 
York on the President's calls. Many of these regiments were 
almost wholly composed of men of foreign birth, a fact amply illus- 
trated by the names of the colonels — as D'Utassy, Von Gilsa, 
Kozlay, Kryzanowski, De Trobriand, Von Amsberg, Rosa, D'Epi- 



48 Annual Report of the State Historian. 

neuil and Betge. Several regiments of cavalry and batteries of 
artillery that were being recruited under authorizations from 
the War Department were remanded by the same general 
orders to the State authority. The recruiting under the latter 
authority was not very active during this period; the conflict 
between the two sources of authority had a depressing effect, 
and the disaster at Bull Run was not relieved by any successes in 
the east, while the defeat at Wilsons Creek, Missouri, terminating in 
the death of the gallant General Lyon,* on August loth, was fol- 
lowed about a month later by the surrender of Lexington in the 
same State by Colonel Mulligan. A month later (October 20th), 

* Nathaniel Lyon was born at Ashford, Conn. His granduncle, Colonel 
Knowlton, was killed in action at Harlem Heights. Lyon graduated from 
West Point in the class of 1841, and was assigned to the Second Infantry. 
He served through the Seminole and Mexican Wars. Was wounded at the 
Belen Gate of the capital. For several years thereafter he saw considerable 
Indian service in California. He took part in the Kansas struggle as captain 
in the Second Infantry, and was stationed at Fort Scott when Sumter was 
fired upon. He was commissioned brigadier-general of volunteers May 17, 
1861, and through his knowledge, energy, determination and sagacity Mis- 
souri was held to the Union. At the conference of July 11, 1861, between 
Governor Jackson and General Price on one side and Colonel Blair and 
General Lyon on the other, Lyon brought the proceedings to a close at the 
end of four or five hours by declaring: " Rather than concede to the State 
of Missouri the. right to demand that my Government shall not enlist troops 
within her limits, or bring troops into the State whenever it pleases, or move 
its troops at its own will into, out of or through the State; rather than con- 
cede to the State of Missouri for a single instant, the right to dictate to 
my Government in any matter, however unimportant, I would " (rising as he 
said this, and pointing in turn to every one in the room) " see you, and you, 
and you, and every man, woman and child in the State, dead and buried." 
Then turning to the Governor he said: "This means war. In an hour one 
of my officers will call for you and conduct you out of my lines." Subse- 
quently he captured the State militia at Camp Jackson, drove the Governor 
from the capitol and all his troops to the farthest corner of the State, held 
Price and McCullouch until the Union men had time to assemble, deposed 
the Governor and Lieutenant-Governor and all of the members of the Gen- 
eral Assembly. He was killed at Wilsons Creek August 10, 1861, aged 42 
years. 



War of the Rebellion Series. 49 

occurred the calamitous afifair at Balls Bluff on the Potomac and the 
killing of Colonel Baker,* the Oregon Senator and soldier. A week 
or so later the capture of the forts at Hilton Head and Phillips 
Island by the expedition under General T. W. Sherman and Com- 
modore Dupont gave us a valuable lodgment on the Atlantic coast 
and a depot of supplies and base of operations at Port Royal, S. C, 
but this achievement was not sufficient to encourage enlistments. 
These, however, steadily continued during the fall and winter, par- 
tially during the latter part of the time for regiments in the field. 

The militia Brigadier Generals Yates, Rathbone and Van Valken- 
burgh, who had respectively commanded the depots at New York, 
Albany and Elmira, under the previous call, were continued in com- 
mand, and each was provided with a full staff of assistants.! The 
War Department, by general orders (No. 58) issued on August 15th, 
proposed to establish near New York and Elmira camps of 
rendezvous and instruction for volunteers under the command of 
officers of the army, but these orders were never carried out; in 
fact there was too great a lack of such officers to permit such a 
scheme. So, early as April 26th, Governor Morgan had requested 

* Edward Dickenson Baker was born in London, England, February 24, 
1811. At the age of five years he came to America. Later he moved to 
Springfield, 111., where he studied law and was admitted to the bar. In 1837 
he was elected a member of the Legislature. Three years later promoted to 
the Senate; 1844. sent to Congress. He fought with great distinction at the 
head of his regiment during the Mexican War and commanded a brigade 
after General Shields was wounded at Cerro Gordo. He served again in 
Congress from December, 1849, until March 3, 1851, declining renomina- 
tion. The gold fever found him in California, where he at once took rank 
^s a leader of the bar. In i860 he was elected to the United States Senate 
from Oregon. When Sumter was fired upon, he repaired to New York and 
raised what was called the California Regiment, several companies having 
been recruited in Philadelphia. At Balls Bluff he commanded a brigade and 
fell mortally wounded. 

tSee Appendix B. "Headquarters, Depots, etc." 



50 Annual Report of the State Historian. 

the Secretary of War to assign the West Point cadets of the first 
class from this State to duty with tlie regiments of vokmteers as 
miHtary instructors. The answer was that the early graduation of 
the first class of cadets was under consideration, and that if possible 
the Governor's request w-ould be granted, but the scarcity of army 
officers might render it necessary to assign these cadets immediately 
to active commands in the service, and indeed this necessity was 
so overwhelming that these newly-fledged warriors were soon in 
high commands, even as colonels and generals, reaching in a few 
months the rank that was attained by few during life-long service 
in peaceful days. 

Adjutant General Read, who had been overburdened by his 
duties, both through bodily weakness and lack of qualifications, 
resigned on August 15th, and was succeeded by Tliomas Hillhouse, 
of Geneva, late senator from that district, who proved to be an 
earnest and untiring official. 

By a letter on August 3d to Governor Alorgan, the Secretary of 
War authorized him to make requisitions upon the various bureaus 
of the War Department for expenses incurred in the organization of 
troops under the recent call, and this letter was the basis for the 
subsequent adjustment of accounts covering a large aggregate 
sum, payable from the appropriation by Congress on August 5th 
of twenty millions for the expenses of collecting, drilling and organ- 
izing volunteers. A large part of this fund was disbursed through 
army officers stationed in the principal cities, most of them bemg 
of that unfortunate number paroled when General Twiggs treacher- 
ously surrendered his army in Texas. These officers trained in 
the rigid requirements and formalities of the army, insisted upon 
vouchers and forms that most of the recruiting officers could not 
furnish, since they were ignorant of these requisites at the time 



Wat? of the Rebellion Series. 51 

when their accounts accrued and could not repair their defects. 
These disbursing officers at a later day were more liberal and con- 
siderate, under orders of the War Department relaxing the strict- 
ness of regulations. An edition of the General Regulations of the 
United States Army was published by the State in June, 1861, for 
the use of its own oflficials, but very few of the persons engaged 
in enlistments ever saw it. 

There was from the very beginning of the war a clashing with 
the regular military establishment. The militia, the volunteers, 
the State officials and the people, full of patriotic aspirations and 
ardor, eager each to do his utmost to aid their assaulted country, 
found their eliforts hampered and entangled in the web of military 
formalism; this latter had its uses and value, perhaps never more 
strongly than in this period of dizzy effervescence, but it might have 
been, yet was not, tempered by a just discretion. The iron wall of 
military discipline and precedent would not yield even to the fervid 
importunity of patriots rushing to arms. The most exasperating 
of these army officers were those attached to the staff departments, 
particularly the quartermaster's. The officer in charge of that 
branch at New York when the war began was Colonel Daniel D. 
Tompkins, one of the assistant quartermasters general, who 
delighted in scolding, abusing and cursing the unfortunate volun- 
teer officers who had business with him, and in this respect was 
a type of many of his fellows. I recall a ludicrous incident in 
the autumn of 1862 when he was finally discomfited. The One 
Hundred and Eleventh Regiment Infantry (of the third levy), 
raised at Auburn, was commanded by Colonel Jesse Segoine, an old 
brigadier general of militia, noted for his bruskness and vituperative 
fluency. His regiment should have gone to the Army of the 
Potomac via Elmira and Harrisburg, Pa., as the shortest route, but 



52 Annual Report of the State Historian. 

Colonel Segoine for some reason wanted to pass through New 
York, and by the influence of his distinguished fellow townsman, 
Secretary Seward, got leave to do so. When he applied to Colonel 
Tompkins, at his office on State street, opposite the Battery, for 
his transportation papers for Washington, that officer began his 
usual tirade, damning Colonel Segoine for his round-about route 
and objurgating in red-hot terms all volunteer colonels. The 
imperturbability of Colonel Segoine inflamed the irascible quarter- 
master, and he cursed until the air was blue and until, out of breath, 
he had to desist. Then the volunteer colonel began in a cool but 
stentorian voice to return the malediction, in such new and endless 
flow of execration that the old regular stood aghast and finally over- 
come by the interminable array of new phrases of denunciation and 
blasphemy he begged his master in Billingsgate and imprecation 
to go out and take a drink. When at our headquarters in Walker 
street we heard of Colonel Tompkins' ignominious discomfiture in 
the field of filth where he had reigned supreme there was general 
rejoicing, and for many days thereafter volunteer officers found 
the late truculent quartermaster quiet and even courteous in his 
official demeanor. 

The attitude of the United States authorities regarding facilities 
for recruiting was various; it was adverse in the difficulty or 
impossibility of obtaining reimbursement for expenses, so costly was 
it that only the hope of obtaining a commission gave encourage- 
ment. At first it was proposed to pay the enlisted men only from 
date of muster, but this was soon abandoned and payment made 
from date of enlistment, but even so late as June, after the minute- 
men from our militia had been several weeks guarding Washington, 
there was required some urgence to obtain their payment from the 
date they abandoned family and business to protect the threatened 



War of the Rebellion Series. 53 

capital. There were discouragements in the frequent decisions that 
no more troops were required, followed at intervals by an urgent 
call for them; and the unsettled question as to whom application 
for authority should be made for several months disturbed the 
military mind. I have called attention to several New York regi- 
ments (p. 47, supra) composed almost entirely of foreigners, and 
by a general order of July 19th the War Department announced 
" in future no volunteer will be mustered into the service who is 
unable to speak the English language." There were many such 
foreigners ready for enlistment, generally Germans with a military 
training, and this injudicious order was modified on August 3d so 
as to permit the muster of foreigners into regiments of their own 
nationality. The order of August 12th that all regiments should 
be for a term of three years was a sound one, but it sensibly 
arrested enHstments. There was also some discouragement regard- 
ing the period for muster-in of officers, which, however, was modi- 
fied in September. The State General Orders of July 30th (No. 78) 
provided that the pay of the captain and first lieutenant of a com- 
pany might date from their acceptance with 32 men, and the United 
States Pay Department subsequently ratified this order, but it was 
not extended to officers of organizations raised under later orders 
who received pay only from date of their muster-in to the United 
State service. 

On the other hand Congress increased the pay of privates from 
$11 to $13 per month, but this additional $24 for a year's service 
could not be accounted an inducement. A beneficent arrangement 
under the law was made for the allotment of an optional part of a 
private's pay for the benefit of his family, such allotments being 
secured at the time of enlistment, when domestic attachment was 
strong and before the demoralizing effect of military life had im- 



54 Annual Report of the State Historian, 

paired it. These allotments served an excellent purpose, not only 
in aiding the support of the dependent families, but in preserving 
even in that slight form the tie with home that might in many cases 
have been severed by absence and the degrading effect of warfare."" 
It was provided by the act of July 22, 1861, that not only should 
the volunteers receive the same pay, allowances and pensions as 
soldiers in the regular army, but also that a bounty of one hundred 
dollars should be paid to the widow or heirs of any volunteer who 
was killed or who died in the service. This was doubtless an 
inducement, though overshadowed soon by the increasing bounties 
paid at time of enlistment, and not after date of discharge, which 
in many cases would be post-mortem, like a life insurance. Another 
act considerably increased the army ration during the period of 
" the present insurrection," and a general order of August reduced 
the minimum stature of recruits from the standard of five feet four 
and a half inches to five feet three inches. The War Department 
also gave its attention to many details hitherto overlooked, such 
as the record of evidences on which pensions might be granted, 
and to the interment of deceased soldiers and proper identification 
of the places of their burial. 

The State in August made an offer of a premium (miscalled 
" bounty ") of two dollars per man on every thirty-two recruits 
presented and passed at the depots; this was intended as a partial 
reimbursement of expenses, but it was found that the United States 
would not recognize nor probably refund such advances, having 
by law (§ 9, Act Aug. 3) abolished such premium. The State, 
therefore, rescinded its order on October 17th, but I cannot now 
recall the aggregate amount of these premiums. 

On August 22d, with the purpose of stimulating enlistments, 

* See Appendix A. 



War of the Rebellion Series. 55 

Governor Morg-an issued a vigorous proclamation, appealing to 
the patriotism of the people and urgfing the pressing necessities of 
the United States Government. 

The stafif organization remained the same, except that Colonel 
Edmund Schriver resigned on Septem^ber i as aid-de-camp to 
accept the position of inspector general in the regular army, and 
was succeeded by Colonel Thomas B. Arden/'' also a West Point 
graduate. General Chester A. Arthur continued to act as assistant 
quartermaster-general at New York. Captain H. C. Hodges,t of 
the United States Quartermaster's Department, was assigned to 
duty under the War Department letter of August 3d, already referred 
to, conferring authority on Governor Morgan to equip volunteers. 
At first the accounts under this authority were payable either by 
drafts on the Treasury or by Treasury notes bearing interest at 
six per cent. This option was rescinded, however, on August 8th, 
and payments made by draft only. 

* Thomas B. Arden was appointed from New York and graduated from 
West Point in the class of 1835. He served during the Florida war; resigned 
December 31, 1842, and acted as president of the Putnam County Agricul- 
tural Society from 1851-1856. From April 26th to August, 1861, he served 
as an aid-de-camp to Major-General Sandford, New York State Militia, with 
the rank of major in the defenses of Washington, D. C, and subsequently 
as aid-de-camp to Governor Morgan with the rank of colonel, acting as mili- 
tary agent of New York State troops in the field September 2, 1861, to Jan- 
uary I, 1863. 

t Henry C. Hodges was born in Vermont, graduated from West Point 
class of '51 and was assigned to the Fourth Infantry, in which he served in 
California, Oregon and Washington until the outbreak of the war, when he 
was appointed assistant quartermaster, with the rank of captain, and acted as 
purchasing and disbursing quartermaster on the stafif of Governor Morgan, 
August, '61, to January, '63, in clothing and equipping New York volun- 
teers. He was then assigned to the center grand division of the Army of the 
Potomac as quartermaster with the rank of colonel, and subsequently served 
as chief quartermaster on Major-General Rosecrans' stafif in the Ten- 
nessee campaign, participating in the battle of Chickamauga. He was 
appointed to the various grades and to the rank of colonel, assistant quarter- 
master-general and was retired January 14. 1895. 



56 Annual Report of the State Historian. 

On a previous page I have spoken of the many resignations of 
officers from the early regiments; the glamour of military glory 
was soon dissipated by the stern realities; some found themselves 
physically unable to endure the privations of the camp or the 
fatigues of the march; others failed in qualities of discipline and 
command, and a few were lacking in courage. On August 3d 
(G. O. No. 51) the War Department called attention to the numer- 
ous resignations of commissioned officers and the probability of 
their abuse, and on August 15th directed that no person who had 
resigned his commission should be again mustered in as an officer 
of another regiment. So, too, the discharges of enlisted men for 
disability were so numerous as to demand the most stringent meas- 
ures, not only by greater vigilance in the medical examination of 
recruits, but by the order that all men discharged for disability 
within three months from date of enlistment should not receive 
pay for any period of service. Discharge of minors who had failed 
to produce the permission of their parents or gyardians, through 
deception or forgery, was also prohibited. In fact, the stern, inex- 
orable facts of war were being enforced and realized. The exami- 
nations of persons aspiring to be officers (under War Dept. G. O. 
No. 47 and State G. O. No. 78) had salutary effects. The State 
examinations were made by military officers and were not calcu- 
lated to secure any large degree of military knowledge or efficiency,, 
but they did deter to some extent the application of conspicuously 
unfit men, particularly as they suggested that there might be fur- 
ther examinations in the field under more rigid conditions. 

Before taking up the incidents of this period seriatim the charac- 
ter of this levy may be reviewed in mass. It includes all the regi- 
ments mustered into the United States service between July i, 
1861, and March 31, 1862. In this levy were included much mate- 



War of the Rebellion Series. 57 

rial similar to that of the earlier regiments, the adventurous and 
thoughtless; it comprised several regiments composed almost en- 
tirely of men of foreign birth, mostly Germans and Irishmen. The 
proportion of men of foreign birth in the Union armies has been 
absurdly exaggerated; they formed a very small percentage of the 
aggregate. From this State, where the influx of immigration and 
the large number of foreign residents in the large cities gave more 
than the average opportunities for recruiting from this class, I do 
not think the percentage exceeded ten in a hundred. Despite the 
military education of these German officers from this State, none 
of them reached the distinction of their Western counterparts, Gen- 
erals Sigel and Schurz. 

The Eighth Volunteer Infantry Regiment was one of the first 
of the two-years regiments in the field, and was commanded by 
Colonel Louis Blenker, who had been an officer in the German army, 
and I recall the ridiculous anticipations of his military career and 
the newspaper pufifs showered upon him. In the summer of 1861 
we were made to believe that Washington was safe because Blenker 
was there. He was one of the first batch of brigadier-generals of 
volunteers appointed by the President on August 9, 1861, but he 
never became distinguished. Julius Stahel, the lieutenant-colonel 
of this regiment, was made a brigadier-general on November 12, 
1861, and did good service in that rank. Prince Felix Salm-Salm 
was a major in the same regiment, and he and his wife were among 
the picturesque features of the Army of the Potomac. None of the 
German officers in this second levy reached the rank of brigadier- 
general. 

There were many military fantasies in this period. Colonel 
William A. Howard began to raise a regiment of " marine artil- 
lery," and I recall him as a handsome, plausible man with a breezy 



58 Annual Report of the State Historian. 

salt-water manner and in neat, semi-nautical attire, but I never 
could grasp the purpose or utility of his amphibious regiment, which 
he claimed would serve with equal facility on land and water. He 
never completed his task, and the companies raised were disbanded 
in March, 1863. Then there was the " rocket battahon," which was 
to use Congreve rockets, an " exploded " missile, but it never did 
so and was, at an early day, transformed into two battalions of artil- 
lery. One of the first infantry regiments raised under the Gov- 
ernor's call of July 25tli was the Forty-fourth, called by the melo- 
dramatic title of " the Ellsworth Avengers," referring to the assassi- 
nation of Colonel Elmer E. Ellsworth (see page 35, supra). It was 
proposed that this regiment should consist of one representative 
from each of the thousand towns in the State, and though this 
project was not fully carried out, many selections were made by 
towns. When this regiment left Albany " for the field " in Octo- 
ber its full ranks of stalwart men, marching down that grand ave- 
nue. State street, made a deep impression upon all spectators. 
During its three years it served continuously in the Army of the 
Potomac, being engaged during that period in all the battles of 
that much-belabored host. In the first levy there had been two or 
three infantry regiments clad in Zouave uniform, and in this second 
levy there were one or two more, being the last, since the United 
States was averse to the supply of an}i:hing but standard articles 
of every kind, since any exceptional type led to great confusion. 
The most fantastic, brilliant and outre of these uniforms was that 
of a proposed regiment of Zouaves attempted by a French officer, 
Colonel Lionel J. D'Epineuil, and largely French in its composi- 
tion (Fifty-third Infantry), but which was a failure, and was dis- 
banded March 21, 1862. Another regiment (Fifty-fifth Infantry) 
was given the same number as the French military regiment in 



War of the Rebellion Series. 59 

New York city, known as the Guard Lafayette. This regiment 
was largely French in material, and was commanded by Colonel 
Regis De Trobriand, a well-known writer, who, in January, 1864, 
was made a brigadier- general of volunteers, in June, 1866, colonel 
of the Thirty-first Regiment of regulars, and is now on the retired 
list of the Army.* In the first levy there were no cavalry and only 
three batteries of artillery. The First Regiment of Artillery was 
mustered in on September 25, 1861, and its colonel was First 
Lieutenant Guilford R. Bailey, of the Second Regiment Artillery, 
United States Army. Colonel Bailey was a fine-looking, enthusi- 
astic and gallant young man and very popular when at West Point. 
He was killed in action at Fair Oaks, Va., on May 31, 1862. 

There had been much hesitation on the part of the War Depart- 
ment to authorize the raising or accepting of cavalry, which was 
considered the least desirable arm of the service for a volunteer 
force; more costly and requiring a higher and prolonged training. 
The pressure of events overcome this reluctance, and nine regi- 
ments of cavalry from this State were included in this second levy. 
One of the earliest attempts in this direction was made at Troy to 
raise a regiment known as the " Black Horse Cavalry,"! but its 
pretentious name did not aid it, since it was disbanded within four 
months, being mustered out of service on March 31, 1862. There 
is a certain glamour of chivalry in mounted troops, and in those 
early days there was the more practical idea that this branch of 
the service is less fatiguing. Thus there was a strong drift toward 
cavalry, the proportion of which was reduced, however, in our 

* General De Trobriand has died since the above was written. His death 
occurred 15 July, 1897. 

t This name was probably borrowed from the popular designation of a 
syndicate of legislative lobbyists who had been successful in previous ses- 
sions at Albany. But why the secretive and insidious tactics of this body 
suggested the dashing onset of a " Black Horse Cavalry " is now difificult to 
explain. 



6o Annual Report of the State Historian. 

volunteer forces by the consideration that the occasions would be 
rare when mounted troops could be employed in mass. Our rough, 
wooded country, intersected by deep streams, particularly in the 
regions where the war was chiefly waged, prevented those grand 
charges of massed squadrons that greatly influenced and in some 
cases decided the Napoleonic battles. First Lieutenant Judson Kil- 
patrick, of the First Artillery, United States Army, was appointed 
lieutenant-colonel of the Second New York Cavalry, promoted to 
its colonelcy, made a brigadier-general of volunteers in June, 1863, 
and subsequently appointed major-general, and was one of the 
most conspicuous cavalry leaders of the war.* He was a signal 
example of the rapid rise of officers in that great contest. Two 
regiments of engineers were raised in this period, and subsequently 
a two-years infantry regiment (the Fifteenth) was changed to the 
same arm of the service. These regiments, largely composed of 
skilled artisans and officered by experienced civil engineers, ren- 
dered excellent service during the war in pontoon and bridge build- 
ing, dismantling and repairing railroads and in other operations, 
constructive and destructive. 

Including the irregular organizations remanded to the State 
authority, New York raised in this levy of three-years volunteers 
sixty-five regiments of infantry, nine of cavalry, two of engineers, 
three of artillery and four battalions and nine batteries of artillery, 
all being sent into the field before April i, 1862. From the officers 
of these regiments twenty-three were promoted to be brigadier- 
generals. 

* The cavalry force during the war, both in the east and west, was most 
valuable in skirmishing and protection of the army flanks. It also by its 
rapid raids demoralized the enemy. In these directions mounted troops 
were employed by both sides. On our own side the most distinguished 
cavalry leader was General Sheridan, a native of Albany, N. Y. 



War of the Rebellion Series. 6i 

In addition to these troops there had been considerable recruit- 
ment of regiments in the service. On April i, 1862, the account 
of troops furnished by the State stood about as follows, inclusive 
of the recruits as above: 

Militia for three months in 1861 ; 13,906 

Two-years volunteers in 1861 30>95o 

Three-years volunteers in 1861-62 89,000 

Total 133.856 



This levy was the last one organized by concentration of super- 
vision at three depots and the first one under the sole and supreme 
control of the Governor. It was in many ways relieved from the 
difficulties attending the organization of the previous levy. Instead 
of the diluted responsibility of a military board there was the proper 
military supervision by a single officer. There was a more thorough 
and efficient organization of the staff departments and a larger 
experience in the details of recruiting by those engaged in it.* 

Nearly all the accounts connected with the first levy, amounting 
in the aggregate to nearly $3,000,000, had been audited in the 
Inspector-General's office, and that experienced officer, General 
Patrick, had charge of all expenditures for supplies under the sec- 
ond levy, until relieved by the officers detailed to that service by 
the War Department in October (1861). All the contracts for 
these supplies were made by the Governor, under the authority 
conferred August 5th. There was kept in the Inspector-General's 
office by me a record of all contracts, of the receipt and issue of 
supplies under them and of payment on account. Under Adjutant- 
General Hillhouse's systematic supervision the personal records 
were greatly improved. Two hundred and six candidates for the 



62 Annual Report of the State Historian. 

positions of regimental surgeon and assistant surgeon were ex- 
amined by Surgeon-General Vander Poel. The general health of 
the recruits in barracks was much better, partly owing to cooler 
weather and more particularly to better arrangements and greater 
experience. At New York General Arthur continued to represent 
the Quartermaster's Department. 

During this period there were no great military events, though 
some at the time were regarded as of signal importance. On Au- 
gust 2oth General George B. McClellan was placed in command 
of the Army of the Potomac, the first page in the varied history 
of that body. Under his supervision the chain of forts encircling 
Washington was completed, and in a great camp of instruction 
were gathered the regiments then in that vicinity and arriving there 
from time to time. In defensive works and in the organization and 
drilling of armies General McClellan had no superior in our service. 
On the same day that he took command of that army there sailed 
from Fortress Monroe a joint naval and military expedition under 
Commodore Goldsborough and General Butler, which captured 
Forts Hatteras and Clark at the mouth of Pamlico Sound, thus 
obtaining lodgment on the North Carolina coast that was never 
relinquished to the end of the war. These successes somewhat 
counterbalanced the defeat of forces in the battle at Wilsons Creek, 
Mo., when our commanding officer. General Nathaniel Lyon, was 
killed, the first officer of high rank lost on either side. The rebel 
General Price subsequently invested the town of Lexington, occu- 
pied by Colonel Mulligan of Illinois and his Irish Brigade, who 
surrendered on September 20th. Colonel Mulligan was at Albany 
a few weeks later, and I recall how we lionized him as a hero. I 
had been slightly acquainted with him at Chicago some six years 
earlier but lost sight of him after this meeting. 



War of the Rebellion Series. 63 

On October 21st occurred the disastrous battle at Balls Bluff 
on the Potomac, perhaps, considering the force engaged, the most 
disastrous battle of the war. Colonel Baker, the United States Sen- 
ator from Oregon, led our forces and was killed before the end of 
the engagement, which comprised on our part a little less than 
2,000 men, of whom at least one-half were lost as killed, drowned 
or missing. There were palpable evidences of mismanagement — 
indeed General Charles P. Stone was arrested and incarcerated in 
Fort Lafayette on this charge, and, though subsequently released, 
never recovered his position."^' This second disaster on the Poto- 
mac, though not as important as the previous one at Bull Rtm, was 
very disheartening. Our Forty-second Infantry, known as the 
" Tammany Regiment," was engaged in it and lost heavily, and 
its colonel, Milton .Cogswell, was in command after the gallant 

* General Charles P. Stone was born September 30, 1824, at Greenfield, 
Massachusetts; graduated from West Point July i, 1845, and was assigned 
to the ordnance corps. During the Mexican War he was attached to the 
only siege battery in the army. He served on the staff of General Scott, and 
distinguished himself throughout the campaign which ended in the capture 
of the city of Mexico. He resigned from the army November 17, 1856, to 
go in the banking business in San Francisco. To General Stone, more than 
to any other officer, is due the credit of saving Washington from falling into 
the hands of the insurgents in the spring of 1861. He was commissioned 
colonel of the Fourteenth Regular Infantry May 14, 1861, and brigadier-gen- 
eral United States Volunteers three days later; assigned to the Shenandoah 
Valley and commanded at the battle at Balls Bluff. He was selected as the 
victim for the blunders committed at that slaughter, and was incarcerated at 
Fort Lafayette, N. Y., February 9, 1862, to August 16, 1862, without charges 
being preferred against him. Subsequently he served in the southwest for a 
time, but returned to the Army of the Potomac and commanded a brigade 
before Petersburg in the latter part of the summer of 1864. He resigned 
from the army September 13th of that year and eventually became attached 
to the Egyptian Army, where for " his valuable services in commanding, 
organizing and administration," he was decorated by the Khedive several 
times. He constructed the pedfestal and colossal statue of " Liberty En- 
lightening the World," on Bedloes Island, New York Harbor, 1886-7. 
He died at New York city January 24, 1887, aged 62 years. 



64 Annual Report of the State Historian. 

Colonel Baker's death, and conducted the melancholy and deadly 
retreat across the Potomac. 

On September 26th the President appointed Governor Morgan a 
major-general of Volunteers, the only appointment of the kind that 
was made during the war. Governor Morgan accepted this posi- 
tion with great reluctance, and only yielded to the urgency of the 
President and Secretaries Cameron and Seward. The military 
importance of New York in many respects, and particularly as the 
source of armies, suggested the endowment of its Governor with 
every possible token of authority. On October 26th the War 
Department, by General Orders No. 92, created the Military Depart- 
ment of New York, under the command of Major-General Morgan, 
to whom all United States officers reported for duty within the bor- 
ders of the State. General Morgan subsequently appointed Captain 
George Bliss as his assistant adjutant-general and Lieutenant John 
H. Linsly his aid-de-camp. The former had been in 1859-60 his 
private secretary as Governor and subsequently was paymaster-gen- 
eral on the State staff. Lieutenant Linsly was his military secretary 
as Governor. 

On November ist was announced the retirement from active 
service of Brevet Lieutenant-General Winfield Scott, then in his 
seventy-sixth year, having served over fifty years, in the last twenty 
of which he was in command of the army. It is not derogatory to 
General Scott's fame to say that the unique character of the war 
and his age and physical condition made his retirement necessary. 
It will be to his lasting honor that, though like General Lee he 
was a native of Virginia, he had a clearer conception of his alle- 
giance as a citizen of the United States, and never wavered in his 
loyalty. He died in May, 1866, having seen the Union fully re- 
stored. The same order that announced General Scott's retirement 



War of the Rebellion Series. 65 

published the President's appointment of Major-General McClellan 
to the command of the army. He was in his thirty-fifth year when 
he thus began his interesting mihtary career as the general-in-chief. 
His past hfe had been in all respects creditable. As one of the 
military commissioners sent by our Government to the Crimea dur- 
ing the war there in 1855 he had written a valuable treatise upon 
the " Organization of European Armies and Operations in the 
Crimea," which was published by the Government. Resigning from 
the army two years later to engage in railway management he vol- 
unteered in the Ohio forces at the outbreak of the rebellion, and 
on May 14, 1861, was appointed a major-general in the regular 
army that he had left two years earlier with the rank of captain. I 
shall not attempt to describe a career about which so much has been 
written and from such different standpoints. Whatever may have 
been General McClellan's defects or shortcomings, he in the end 
suffered most from that national craze of hero-worship that, pre- 
vailing throughout the entire war, was more frantic in its earlier 
period. This tendency was always capricious and unreasonable; 
feeding upon deceptions and illusions, it was quite as unjust in its 
adulation as in its condemnation. Some allowance must be made 
for the natural excitements of those days of peril and uncertainty, 
but it now seems strange that we believed such unfounded reports 
and were so readily deceived concerning the vices or the virtues of 
those in high position. I have mentioned (p. 57, supra) our faith 
in the invincibility of " General Blenker." For a year after the 
disaster at Bull Run it was generally believed that our defeat was 
owing to the intoxication of General McDowell, in command, who 
was represented as an habitual drunkard and anathematized even 
from the pulpits, and though the truth was that he had always been 
5 



66 Annual Report of the State Historian. 

a man of scrupulously sober habits, he never recovered from the 
effects of these baseless scandals. 

General McClellan attained the generalship of the army at a 
remarkably early age. His successes in Virginia, west of the Blue 
Ridge, had been accounted very brilliant amid the almost universal 
disasters to our cause elsewhere. He was a man possessing many 
elements of popularity in his personal appearance and address, and 
had the power of attaching firmly to him those near his person and 
to whom he gave his confidence. The task he had undertaken in 
the organization, or rather the creation, of a grand army, so far as 
drill and discipline could accomplish that end, was a work for which 
he was peculiarly fitted by his temperament and training. The 
national appetite for a hero was stimulated by our many reverses. 
We did not as yet appreciate the transcendant character of that 
patient, overburdened and faithful occupant of the " White House," 
who bore the responsibility of those dreadful days. General Mc- 
Clellan was the champion, the warrior-defender of the Union, the 
gallant chieftain who was to lead us to certain and early victory. 
As I have observed above, the conditions were all favorable for an 
exhibition of that hero-worship that as a nation we are so addicted 
to, and in this instance the fire was fed by the fooHsh adulation of 
the hero's friends, who began to call him " the young Napoleon," 
and otherwise to associate him in the public mind with all the 
famous soldiers of the past. The newspaper correspondents with 
the army took up the theme and gave loose reins tO' their laudations 
and imaginations. Many of General McClellan's misfortunes may 
be fairly attributed to this universal folly and weakness. 

On Tuesday, November 5th, occurred our State election, which 
resulted in a complete change of all the State officers except the 
Governor and Lieutenant-Governor, whose terms expired over a 



War of the Rebellion Series. 67 

year later. None of the other members of " the military board " 
was renominated, and what was known as the " Union ticket " was 
elected by the unprecedented majority of more than one hundred 
thousand votes. The two prominent men so elected were Daniel 
S. Dickinson, as Attorney-General, and Lucius Robinson, as Comp- 
troller. Mr. Dickinson had been a State Senator, 1837-41 ; Lieu- 
tenant-Governor, 1841-42, and United States Senator, 1844-51; also 
holding other offices, all of them as a Democrat. In the division 
of that party he was a " Hunker; " but the rebellion had opened his 
eyes and, like Douglas and many others, he became an uncompro- 
mising Unionist, and was the competitor of Andrew Johnson for • 
the nomination as Vice-President in 1864. Mr. Robinson was one 
of the Free-soil Democrats who had acted with the Republican 
party. He had been a member of the Assembly from Elmira in 
the sessions of i860 and 1861, was reelected Comptroller in 1863 and 
again on the Democratic nomination in 1875, and was elected Gov- 
ernor in 1876, being the first officer in that position to serve three 
instead of two years under the recent change in the Constitution. 
At this same election there was chosen a Legislature that in both 
bodies, particularly the Assembly, was representative in character 
and energy of the patriotic exaltation of that first year in our cruel 
war. 

On November 8th we heard of the battle at Belmont, Mo., on the 
previous day, where our forces were commanded by Brigadier- 
General U. S. Grant, this being the first occasion when that officer's 
name became generally known, a name thenceforth to be associated 
only with victories. Several days later General McQellan issued 
a congratulatory order (G. O. No. 99) in which he grouped this 
battle of Belmont, the. recent successes of General Nelson at Pike- 
ville, Ky., and the reduction of the forts at Port Royal and capture 



68 Annual REroRX of the State Historian. 

of Beaufort, on the South Carolina coast, by the naval and army 
expedition under Commodore Dupont and General T. W. Sher- 
man. In contrast with the later and larger events of the war these 
seem to afiford scanty material for a War Department cry of exulta- 
tion, but at that time we needed an encouraging tonic, and the 
order was of great value in its influence upon the troops being col- 
lected and converted into an army near Washington. 

General Patrick had believed for some time that his proper post 
of duty as inspector-general on the Governor's staff was with that 
army containing the largest part of the troops from this State. 
There were many reasons why a representative of the State should 
be near the troops — the volunteer organization preserved the dis- 
tinction of States and appealed to State pride. All promotions to 
the company and regimental offices were made by the Governor, 
who needed unprejudiced information and advice as to the quali- 
fications or conspicuously good service of those in line of pro- 
motion; the presence of a State official of suitable rank would 
strengthen the home attachment of the State troops, encourage 
their esprit de corps and their contentment, while it also secured 
a prompt means of communication between them and their friends 
at home. Many other obvious reasons might be given, but Gen- 
eral Patrick was content with an occasional visit " to the front " 
until General McClellan began the work of organizing a grand 
army. By November ist there were over twenty regiments of 
infantry from this State in that body and many more almost ready 
to join it. General Patrick's relations with General McClellan were 
very cordial, and he had been at West Point with General Marcy, 
the father-in-law of General McClellan. He convinced the Gov- 
ernor that his place was now in the field, and on November 15th 
reported to General McClellan and, as he wrote me, was accepted 



War of the Rebellion Series. 69 

as a volunteer aid on his staff. It was a brilliant staff, and in addi- 
tion to the administrative officers comprised many distinguished 
persons appointed aides-de-camp under the recent act of Congress. 
Among- these, with the rank of captain, were Louis Philippe 
d'Orleans (Compte de Paris) and his brother, Robert d'Orleans 
(Due de Chartres),the former the Orleanist heir to the French throne. 
About the middle of November we heard of the " Trent affair." 
The Confederate government had commissioned Mr. Mason as dip- 
lomatic comimissioner to England and Mr. Slidell to France. They 
got through our blockade and reached Havana and embarked in 
the British steamer Trent for Nassau, where they would connect 
with the regular line thence to England. Captain Wilkes, in com- 
mand of the United States vessel San Jacinto, overtook the Trent 
and forcibly took from it the rebel commissioners and brought 
them to Boston, where they were incarcerated in Fort Warren, in 
the harbor of that city, as " contraband of war." In our then ex- 
cited condition there was general exultation over Captain Wilkes' 
violent capture of the rebel emissaries. We had no idea of inter- 
national law, and we viewed this violation of it as a proper exercise 
of our right to suppress the rebellion. Almost without exception 
the public expression was jubilant and laudatory. But soon came 
the menacing echoes from England, the outcry against the violation 
of neutral rights, the rapid military and naval preparations and the 
prospect of a foreign war superadded to our domestic troubles. 
There was some foolish ebullition of defiance, but to the thoughtful 
the prospect was very threatening and almost fatal. In case of war 
with Great Britain the brunt would have to be borne by New York. 
Its long sea coast, its great vulnerable metropolis, its long boundary 
at the north, coterminous with Canada, and its important ports on 
the great lakes, were all points of probable attack or invasion. So 



70 Annual Report of the State Historian. 

soon as the intelligence of hostile preparations in England reached 
this country, we who were engaged at the Governor's headquarters 
recognized the gravity of the situation, and that under existing 
conditions our State would have to provide largely for its own 
defense. Indeed there were many official and semi-official intimations 
from Washington that the threatened safety of that city would re- 
quire the retention there of all the troops then near it, and that 
few could be spared from other quarters should there occur a dec- 
laration of war by England, as then seemed imminent — in other 
words, that we would have to take care of ourselves. This was a 
very serious consideration. Our organized militia, very feeble at 
the best except in New York city, had everywhere been weakened 
by the volunteering of a large part of its best elemicnt, since a 
considerable share of the officers in the new regiments had been 
drawn from the militia. There were several regiments within the 
State not yet completed, but they were comparatively few and at the 
best were raw and undrilled, and would count for little in a sud- 
den contest with the disciplined soldiers of the regular British 
army. So far as the approach from Canada was concerned there 
was some relief in the imminence of winter, which would lock up 
the St. Lawrence in ice and make an invasion by land very diffi- 
cult. We were more particularly concerned about New York city, 
which, as the largest and most important of our commercial cities, 
would be the principal objective point of a hostile navy, and Eng- 
land was then the best equipped naval power in the world. Major 
John G. Barnard, of the United States Engineer Corps, had in 
1859 addressed a paper to the Secretary of War entitled " The 
Dangers and Defences of New York," in which he demonstrated 
the pressing need of stronger defensive works. There was in pro- 
cess of construction a great granite fortress on Sandy Hook, which 



War of the Rebellion Series. 71 

was to control the entrance to the ship channels leading into the 
outer bay, but this work was in a very incomplete condition, in 
fact scarcely advanced beyond the foundations. The great change 
in aggressive and defensive conditions since that day has led to 
an abandonment of the plans and materials of this work. At the 
Narrows there were two shore batteries and Fort Richmond, on 
the Staten Island side, and Forts Lafayette and Hamilton, on the 
Long Island side, but the armament both in number of pieces and 
in their caliber was deficient. As there were no guns at Sandy 
Hook, the engineers had decided that at least 300 pieces at the 
Narrows should be so mounted as to concentrate their fire upon 
a vessel passing between them, but not half that number were then 
available. At Governors, Bedloes and Ellis Islands only three- 
quarters of the armament had been supplied, though it is now 
evident that a fleet that had passed the Narrows might disregard 
these inferior works and readily destroy the city. There were also 
no works at all to prevent the disembarkation of a hostile army in 
Gravesend Bay, and a repetition of the British advance from there 
in August, 1776. Tjie eastern entrance to the hanbor by Long 
Island Sound was defended only by Fort Schuyler on Throgs 
Neck, where only 95 guns out of a complete armament of 300 had 
as yet been supplied, while no works or guns had been prepared 
for the opposite shore of Long Island at Willets Point. In fact, 
the conditions of defence of the city were very faulty, and though 
the United States engineers had plans for completing the works 
and armaments so as to bring them fully up to the times, these 
would require years, and the dangers we were confronting were 
imminent. It was decided that shore batteries in earthworks might 
be hastily constructed to prevent disembarkation in Gravesend Bay 
and at Willets Point to further secure the natural gate at Throgs 



72 Annual Report of the State Historian. 

Neck, As for the regular harbor channel entrances earthworks at 
Sandy Hook mounted with heavy guns would guard the outer bay, 
but as the Narrows were the real gateway to the upper bay and to 
such an approach as would enable the bombardment of Brooklyn 
and New York, there was a concentration of attention upon that 
point. Besides consultations with General Totten and Major Del- 
afield of the Corps of Engineers, the Governor appointed a com- 
mission of eminent civil engineers to cooperate with General Ar- 
thur, engineer-in-chief on the stafif, in devising some plan of defence 
at this point and particularly to consider the methods of temporarily 
closing the channel. This commission made an elaborate report 
in April, 1862, recommending the closing of the passage by a float 
of heavy timbers bound together by iron bolts and cables and secured 
by cables to the shores and anchorage.* In the imminence of our 
Trent troubles about half a million cubic feet of pine timber was 
purchased at New York in the latter part of December, by order 
of the Governor, at a cost of about $80,000, and arrangements were 
made for the supply of a much larger quantity.! The Governor 
also directed the purchase of 100,000 pounds of cannon powder, 
which was stored in the United States magazines on Ellis Island 
in the harbor. Some attention was also given to the defences on 
the lakes and northern frontier, though nothing practical was 
attempted. Under the treaty of April, 1818, neither the United 
States nor Great Britain could have upon the boundary lakes, includ- 
ing Lake Champlain, any naval vessels, except a single one on each, 
of small burden armed with a single gun. At the time of the orig- 
inal treaty it placed the two powers on equal terms, but since that 

* The cost of such float was estimated at $1,118,915.60. 

t The timber so bought was sold later at a large profit because of the great 
advance in prices of all commodities. 



War of the Rebellion Series. 73 

date the construction of canals around the several rapids of the St. 
Lawrence river and of the Welland canal, connecting Lakes Ontario 
and Erie, would enable the British Government to place upon the 
great lakes a fleet of war vessels at the very outbreak of hostilities. 
These canals had locks that would admit gunboats from the lower 
St. Lawrence river to Lake Ontario having a length of i86 feet, 
a width of 44 1-2 feet and a draught of 9 feet, or of 600 tons, 
and the Welland canal would admit vessels from Lake Ontario to 
the upper lakes having a length of 162 feet, 26 feet beam and a 
draught of 10 feet, or of 350 tons. 

Our Erie canal locks would not admit boats with more than 98 
feet of length, 173-4 feet width and 6 feet draught, or of less than 
100 tons. We would therefore have to depend upon fitting out 
the mercantile lake craft for naval purposes, and though I do not 
doubt that had the pressing occasion required such a recourse, we 
would have rapidly improvised an excellent navy on the lakes, we 
would still have been at a great disadvantage with our antagonist, 
who could have brought upon those waters its sea-going naval ves- 
sels of small tonnage. 

Such was the high pressure under which we served in those days 
that the whole question of coast and frontier defence was rapidly 
considered and the general line of conduct determined within a com- 
paratively brief period. The terrible emergency never came, and 
the threatening war cloud that had so suddenly gathered from over 
the sea as suddenly passed away, but none of those who partici- 
pated in the anxieties and discussions and bore a part of the respon- 
sibilities in those portentous days can forget them. Had the con- 
flict ensued we should have been in a terribly unprepared condi- 
tion, our harbor and frontier forts in bad condition, with very inade- 



74 Annual Report of the State Historian. 

quate armament for them or for our improvised navies, and with 
only a raw, hastily gathered militia to encounter the British regu- 
lars seasoned in the Crimea and India, With little aid from the 
forces of the General Government, the menaced States would have 
had to depend upon such resources as each could gather within its 
borders and upon that peculiar American aptitude and inventive 
faculty that have so often responded to the occasion. As an 
instance of the latter I recall a proposition made by an old Hudson 
river steamboat captain, as suggested by his own practical experi- 
ence. All the British naval vessels of any moment were propellers 
and our captain advised that all the many shad-nets owned along 
the Hudson should be gathered and arranged in the ship channels 
abreast Sandy Hook and Fort Schuyler on the Sound. These nets 
were to be both anchored and buoyed so as to float a few feet below 
the surface, where the propeller blades would entangle and then 
wind up the nets so tightly as to disable the propeller, while a 
reverse motion would fail to disengage these hidden obstacles. 
The captain said that on the Hudson, in the shad season, propellers 
were thus disabled every year and he would engage that the Brit- 
ish vessels would be unmanageable and kept within the range of 
our shore batteries until well perforated. 

During these exciting days the Trent " affair " was being diplo- 
matically treated, and the negotiations ended in the release of Messrs. 
Mason and Slidell on January i (1862), and placing them on a 
British man-of-war, which conveyed them to Nassau, thus restoring 
so far as possible the status quo. A perusal of the dispatches and 
other State papers in this notable case does not disclose any appar- 
ent settlement of the larger aspects of the matter at issue. The 
discussion revived among our people the vexed and painfully sore 



War of the Rebellion Series. 75 

questions connected with that " right of search " that England 
brutally enforced so long as our national weakness tempted it. 
There were those living who could recall the national feeling during 
and after the "war of 1812," and the avoidance of a fair settlement 
of this dispute in the treaty that ended that war. It did seem to 
the passionate and thoughtless that this right of search was a very 
one sided affair and I think that the prevalence of this sentiment 
somewhat governed Secretary Seward in his negotiations. There 
was no direct break-down on our part, but a flaw in our case was 
conceded in that Captain Wilkes did not capture the Trent as con- 
traband of war and convey it to one of our ports for regular con- 
demnation. However, the gist of the settlement was that passen- 
gers in a neutral vessel could not be forcibly taken from her by a 
naval vessel of a nation at war, even if such passengers were engaged 
in concerns affecting the interests of that nation. 

There was in the matter a plain reminder of the weakness of our 
coast and frontier defences that has never been practically heeded 
and of which I may speak again. 

On January ist the new State officers entered upon their duties in 
the usual quiet way, except in the case of the treasurer, concerning 
whose induction into office there was an unprecedented and ridicu- 
lous opposition. Philip Dorsheimer, whose term as treasurer 
expired on that day, was a typical German politician, having the 
normal quantity of irascibility and obstinacy. He was much 
irritated by the fact that he had not been renominated and held 
that Mr. Lewis who had been elected to his office having failed to 
file his official bond prior to January ist was precluded from enter- 
ing upon the office and that he (D.) was constrained to hold it. 
It was a veritable tempest in a teapot, and there was the scandal 



yd Annual Report of the State Historian. 

of two treasurers — Mr. Lewis, who was recognized by the new comp- 
troller, Mr. Robinson, and Mr. Dorsheimer, supported by Canal 
Auditor Benton, There was much fun in this official contention 
which fortunately for the public interests was settled by the decision 
of Attorney-General Dickinson in such strong terms as compelled 
the irate Dorsheimer to yield. 

On January 7th the Legislature convened in a session remark- 
able in one respect at least, and that was in the almost absolute 
limitation of its action to public purposes and in the absence of 
jobbery. The immediately previous two or three sessions had been 
notorious for the corrupt enactment of New York street railroad 
charters and other like schemes — it was credibly asserted that what 
is known as " the lobby " was never before so well organized, so 
arrogant, so successful. For the previous half century the political 
corruption in our State had been largely confined to the adminis- 
tration, repair and enlargement of its canal system which had been 
the principal bone of contention between the two parties so far as 
touched our State concerns. The power of the Legislature to grant 
franchises for the horse railways in the cities, particularly in New 
York and Brooklyn, disclosed new and rich placers which were 
worked to their full extent. When I went to Albany in May, 1861, 
these corruptions were still discussed in spite of the distant but 
audible thunder presaging the direful lightnings of four years of 
war. 

There were two reasons for this exceptional character of the 
Legislature of 1862, and for its purity compared with its immediate 
predecessors and its successors to this day. It was elected in the 
early period of the war when we were all exalted by the vivification 
of patriotism, and it performed this work while this exaltation was 



War of the Rebellion Series. yy 

bright and clear, as yet undimmed by the meaner motives and pur- 
poses that at a later date tarnished and vitiated it. There were also 
elected to the Assembly or lower house a larger proportion of pub- 
lic spirited, experienced and honorable men than had been chosen 
in recent years. Among these were Henry J. Raymond, the 
brilliant editor of The New York Times, who had been a member 
of the same body in 1850 and 1851, being its Speaker in the former 
year and was in 1855 and 1856 Lieutenant-Governor of the State. 
Calvin T. Hulburd, of St. Lawrence county, and subsequent mem- 
ber of Congress for two terms; Charles L. Benedict, of Brooldyn, 
United States District Judge since 1865; Lemuel Stetson, of Clinton, 
who besides other offices held by him was a member of Assembly 
in 1835, 1S36 and 1842; Peter A. Porter, of Niagara, son of Peter 
B. Porter, who was Secretary of War in 1828; Thomas S. Gray, 
of Warren; Ezra Cornell, of Tompkins; Benjamin Pringle, of 
Genesee; Tracy Beadle, of Chemung; Royal Phelps, of New York; 
Benjamin F. Tracy, of Tioga, now* Secretary of the Navy; Chauncey 
M. Depew, who thus began his public career, and many others of 
similar high character, were among the members of this body, of 
which Mr. Raymond was elected Speaker. The Senate, while not 
containing so many distinguished men, was a highly reputable 
body. The Governor's message was largely occupied by questions 
connected with the conduct of the war, and these of course occupied 
a great part of the attention of the lawmakers. 

Tliere had been for several weeks an increasing misunderstanding 
on the part of the Governor and Inspector-General Patrick. The 
latter said that he had been promised the rank of major-general in 
the State service and every possible aid and support in his project 

* This material was written in 1889. 



yS Annual Report of the State Historian. 

to represent the State troops in the field and carry out the several 
purposes hitherto mentioned (page 68, supra). My official relations 
to General Patrick as his acting assistant at Albany made me well 
acquainted with his grievances, though I was never satisfied as to 
the sufficiency of their grounds. He was a sincerely upright and 
honorable man, but better qualified to deal with military than with 
civil affairs. He was methodical, industrious and one of the most 
open and transparent characters I ever knew. I think that there 
was some secret influence operating against him either of a personal 
or political nature and that Governor Morgan was anxious to get 
rid of him, though I cannot believe that the Governor would have 
wilfully deceived him. The controversy was a very disagreeable 
incident to me, particularly as General Patrick, in his irascibility, 
wanted to appeal from the Governor to the Legislature at a time 
when harmony between those distinct authorities was more than 
usually desirable. General Patrick's appointment as a brigadier- 
general of volunteers led to his resignation from the Governor's 
staff early in February and fortunately ended the dispute. He subse- 
quently became famous as provost-marshal-general of the Armies of 
the Potomac and the James. His successor as inspector-general 
was General C. A. Arthur, who was promoted from the position of 
engineer-in-chief. 

The recent danger of a foreign war suggested the lack of 
defensive preparations upon our part, and several legislative com- 
mittees considered this proposition, particularly in regard to our 
naval forces on the lakes. The subject most discussed was the 
enlargement of the canals and their locks so as to admit the passage 
of gun boats, and several reports were made on this subject. State 
Engineer Taylor reported that to convert the Champlain canal into 



War of the Rebellion Series. 79 

a ship canal would cost $3,750,000, and the enlargement of the locks 
on the Erie and Oswego canals so as to admit the passage of gun- 
boats of 400 tons would cost $3,500,000. Nothing practical came 
of this discussion, but it was obvious that time would be required 
for these enlargements that could not be spared in a sudden 
emergency. I made the proposition that it would be much easier 
to convey vessels from the Hudson to Lakes Erie and Ontario 
by means of the double tracked Central railroad; the vessels to 
rest in cradles supported by trucks running on each track with 
proper inclined planes at the Hudson river and the lakes for draw- 
ing out and again launching the vessels. This would require the 
substitution of temporary tressel-work bridges for such as had the 
track running on their lower chords and the temporary removal 
of the canal viaduct near Syracuse, but these constructions and 
removal could be simultaneously conducted and would occupy but 
a short time. Mr. Taylor thought my plan feasible and I beheve 
it could have been carried out had occasion required. 

There was some talk of taking the partially constructed Stevens 
steam battery at Hoboken and converting it into an eflticient means 
of harbor defense. The Hoboken Stevens family had a hereditary 
interest in steam navigation through John Stevens and Robert L,., 
his son. The former had rivaled Fulton in the practical construction 
of steamboats and had proposed iron-clad batteries; the latter had 
been commissioned by the United States government in 1842 to 
construct according to his father's plans, improved by himself, a 
floating iron-clad battery for the defence of New York harbor. 
Work was immediately begun upon it, but the rapid alternative 
development of ordnance and defensive armor interrupted its 
progress and finally appropriations were withheld. Robert L. 



8o Annual Report of the State Historian. 

Stevens died in 1856, and his battery about half finished was on the 
stocks at Hoboken when the war broke out. Our naval author- 
ities were disinclined to recommend its completion and the success 
of Ericsson's " monitor " naval vessels further diverted attention 
from it. After the war a final effort was made by the Stevens family 
to have it finished, but this failing it was broken up. Though it 
never reached a practical trial it is interesting as an example of the 
early appreciation of the modern iron-clad naval system by a dis- 
tinguished and public spirited American engineer. 

There were the usual number of inventors and projectors impor- 
tunately pressing upon the notice of the Legislature their various 
engines of war or novel means for defense. Nothing was done 
however but to listen. 

One of the earliest lessons of the war had been the inadequacy of 
our State militia laws, and by the Governor's direction General 
Wm. H. Anthon, judge-advocate-general on his staff, had prepared 
the draft of a new law, which being introduced in the Assembly 
was referred to the military committee. Tliis bill provided for the 
enrollment of able-bodied citizens between the ages of eighteen and 
forty-five years as liable to military duty and forming the militia 
of the State. This was divided into two classes — first the organized 
voluntary force to be known as the National Guard, to be armed, 
uniformed, equipped and otherwise aided at the expense of the State; 
detailed and definite provision was made for the organization and 
government of this force which under the terms of the Constitution 
was entitled to the election of its own officers. The remainder of the 
militia formed the reserve force subject to a draft of such number for 
active service as the public exigencies might demand from time to 
time, and detailed provisions were made for the conduct of such 



War of the Rebellion Series. 8i 

drafts when so required. General Anthon was a lawyer of ability, 
and had carefully prepared this bill and discussed it before the com- 
mittees of both houses. It was also considered, section by section, 
in the houses, and after the amendment of details was passed by 
a large vote in substantially the same general form as when intro- 
duced. This law provided for the appointment of an assistant 
inspector-general with the rank of colonel, to which place I was 
appointed on April 23, 1862, the day after the passage of the law 
which provided that the duties of the office should include the 
auditing of all accounts for military purposes. My general duties 
were the same as I had theretofore rendered, but were now recog- 
nized as worthy of high rank. 

Beyond the appropriation for the regular military establishment 
no allotment of funds for future expenditures were made at this 
session comparable with those for 1861. The sum of $50,000 for 
reimbursement of the militia regiments for their uniforms lost or 
destroyed in active service in the last year and the sum of $500,000 
for the payment of military expenses incurred in the State and not 
otherwise provided for were appropriated. I was secretary of the 
two boards of audit for claims payable from these appropriations. 

It was now evident that the conduct of the war so far as con- 
cerned expenditures for the organization and equipment of the 
troops must be controlled by the United States, the States Hmiting 
their outlay to the support of the militia not in the general service, 
to works of benevolence, to such matters as concerned the appoint- 
ment and promotion of regimental officers and the preparation and 
preservation of the records of all troops from each State, to which 
was added subsequently the cost of bounties for enlistment. The 
(6 



82 Annual Report of the State Historian. 

State of New York had exceeded all others in its appropriation of 
funds for the war. In April 1861, in addition to the $3,000,000 for 
raising two years volunteers (Chap. 2^^), there was appropriated 
$500^000 to provide arms and equipments for the militia and pro- 
vide for the public defence (Chap. 292). Under the former appro- 
priation a contract was made with Schuyler, Hartley and Graham, 
of New York, on April 24, 1861, whereby the senior partner, Mr. 
Jacob R. Schuyler, was to proceed to Europe and purchase 25,000 
stand of Enfield or Minie rifles or rifled muskets with bayonets 
and fixed ammunition for the same, and on August 20th a similar 
contract was made with the same parties to procure 10,000 stand 
of like arms for the militia payable from the fund appropriated for 
that end by Chapter 292. At the very outbreak of hostilities the 
dearth of arms at the North had been a grave matter for considera- 
tion. The national arsenals had been surreptitiously depleted and 
their contents sent to the slave States. There were but two armories 
making small arms, one at Springfield, Mass., and one at Harpers 
Ferry, Va., and the latter was captured by the rebels in April (1861) 
and destroyed by them when they evacuated that place two months 
later, and the capacity at Springfield was probably not more than 
100 muskets per diem, but a drop in the bucket, while the private 
armories were not adapted to the making of military arms. There 
was, therefore, a great demand upon the European stocks of these 
articles, and agents of the United States and the various loyal States 
were early abroad competing with speculative buyers and agents 
of the insurgent States. ■ Not only were arms of recent and improved 
kinds bought, but the stores of discarded arms in every country 
were gathered and sent to us. Old muskets from France, Austria, 
Belgium and England were shipped in large quantities up to the 



War of the Rebellion Series. 83 

middle of 1863, and many scandalous transactions resulted from 
the sale of these both to the United States and the States, and there 
was also the danger of such an introduction into active service of 
arms of dififerent calibres as would confuse the proper distribution 
of ammunition and lead to disasters. On June 17th a general 
notice was issued by the chief of ordnance, that ammunition of the 
calibre of the United States muskets would alone be issued. From 
all these scandals and mishaps our State escaped through the good 
management of its ofihcials, and no arms were purchased except 
Enfield rifled muskets of the regulation United States calibre of 
.58 inch. Of these Mr. Schuyler obtained for the two years volun- 
teers 19,000 stand, and for the militia 6,080 stand at an average cost 
of about $17.60 delivered at New York. The competition in Europe 
between the various agents became so strong and prices advanced 
so rapidly, both through the demand for America and several 
other countries, and the bids of speculators, that in November 
Secretary Cameron requested the States to withdraw their agents, 
leaving the procurement and supply of arms to the United States. 
Of course there was a general compliance with this request. There 
were purchased forty field pieces of 3.67 inch bore, rifled and rein- 
forced at the breech on the " Parrott " principle, with carriages, 
caissons, short battery and forge wagons, with solid and hollow 
ammunition for the same. The guns known as " Parrott guns " 
were contracted for and made under the supervision of Major 
Richard Delafield, United States engineers, stationed at New York, 
whose advice and active labor were always at our disposal. I may 
add here that in the last two years of the war there was no dearth 
of rifled muskets. The Springfield armory turned out 1,000 of them 
daily, and the aggregate product by private armories equalled this. 



84 Annual Report of the State Historian. 

The period of the second levy by the State beginning July i, 1861, 
may be considered as ending on March 31, 1862,* and the force 
was distributed among the various arms of the service as follows: 

65 regiments infantry 59.183 men 

9 regiments cavalry 8,742 " 

2 regiments engineers 1,880 " 

3 regiments artillery ] 

4 battalions artillery ^ 6,584 

9 batteries artillery 



Total in new organizations 76,389 

Recruits sent to regiments, etc., in the field 12,500 



Total *88,889 " 

On December 3, 1861, was issued General Order No. 105 
of the War Department, announcing that no more regiments, 
batteries or independent companies were to be raised by the 
States except upon special requisition, and providing an elabor- 
ate system of recruiting for regiments, etc., in the field. 
During the winter General McClellan and his division and 
brigade olificers were actively engaged in drilling into effective 
condition the troops assembled at and near Washington, the 
greater part of them on the Virginia side of the Potomac. Not 
only were there regular daily exercises in company, regimental 
and brigade tactics, but frequent reviews whereby the army 
became conscious of its size and condition, and gained the con- 

* In this levy is included much the greater part of the effective cavalry, 
engineers and artillery organized in the State during the whole war. The 
regiment composing the levy had a longer service and on the whole more 
severe service than the others. 



War of the Rebellion Series. 85 

fidence impaired by the disasters of 1861. General McClellan 
deserves great credit for his abiHty to convert these raw troops 
into an army, and he gained by it that admiration and enthusiastic 
attachment that survived his usefulness and was the cause of many 
cabals and conspiracies injurious to the cause of the Unionists. The 
muddy and impracticable condition of the Virginia roads was given 
as the cause of inactivity, and no engagements occurred during the 
whole winter, General Lee's line being in front of Manassas, so 
that the two armies confronted each other for two months. Our 
long remembered daily announcement in the papers was "All is 
quiet on the Potomac." This monotonous news irritated the 
ardent and impatient and soon there was a counter demand for an 
advance upon the enemy — " On to Richmond " was the cry that 
became vociferous when we heard of the capture of Forts Henry 
and Donelson on the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers. When 
we heard our commanding officer's reply to General Buckner's pro- 
posal for a capitulation of Fort Donelson on February i6th in 
these words : " No terms except an unconditional and immediate 
surrender can be accepted. / propose to move immediately upon your 
zvorks," there was a thrill of exultation and pride in the heart of 
every patriotic citizen, and thenceforth the name of " Ulysses S. 
Grant " was a household word beneath every loyal roof-tree. The 
demand for prompt and vigorous action on the Potomac was now 
overpowering; the knowledge that the army was in excellent con- 
dition and provided in every respect gave added strength to the 
demand. Succumbing to the popular pressure an advance was 
made on March 6th only to find the Rebel army gone, the earth- 
works provided with " Quaker " guns, the cantonment destroyed 
and the whole plan of the campaign frustrated by this unexpected 



86 Annual Report of the State Historian. 

stratagem. The bitter disappointment and chagrin of our people 
was only relieved by the announcement that General McClellan, 
relieved from " the command of the army," that is of all the United 
States forces (March nth), had projected a movement upon Rich- 
mond upon the line of the James river. This radical change in the 
road " On to Richmond " distracted all minds for the time from 
criticism of the failure at Manassas, and relying upon the superior 
intelligence and military genius of the general in command, we saw 
with high hoi>es the Army of the Potomac embark for " the penin- 
sula " between Chesapeake bay and the James river. 



No. 3. 

THIRD LEVY-(FIRST PART) APRIL I, 1862, TO 
DECEMBER 31, J86Z 



T 



HE record of the second levy ends with March 31, 1862, 
but I have not included within that period the dramatic 



episode of the Merrimac. It was known that the Confederate 
government was fitting this old naval vessel as an iron-clad with 
batteries protected by a sloping roof of iron plates and provided 
with a " ram " at its bows. It was reported that her destination 
was the seaboard cities of the North, and that New York was the 
favored objective point. During the discussion in the Legislature 
of the defenseless condition of that city so sharply suggested by 
our recent fears of a war with England, this probable attack by 
the Confederate iron-clad was considered and we again realized our 
helplessness. Only one desperate resource remained, and that was 
to collect in the upper bay all the available steam vessels, including 
ferry boats and tugs, and in a compact fleet to bear down upon the 
iron-clad and board her, and by mere overpowering numbers 
smother her. It was a barbaric project, like a thousand naked 
Indians overbearing a mailed knight ; hundreds would be killed and 
numberless vessels destroyed, but in the end the enemy must have 
succumbed to the swarm of assailants. On March 8th came the 
telegraphic message from the Secretary of War that the Merrimac 
had that day destroyed the Cumberland and Congress and disabled 
the remainder of our fleet in Hampton Roads and would probably 
leave there immediately for New York. There were hurried councils 



88 Annual Report of the State Historian. 

and telegraphic warnings sent to New York, where great alarm was 
felt, but before any preparations could be even improvised we 
heard of the theatrically opportune arrival of the " Monitor " at 
Hampton Roads on March 9th and of the retreat of the Merrimac 
at the end of that eventful day — a day that instantaneously changed 
the methods of naval warfare. It was the second escape of New 
York city within six months, and yet to this day when I write, 
twenty-seven years later, no adequate defence for the great metro- 
politan city has been provided.* Was there ever before such a 
shiftless, happy-g'O-lucky people? 

On April 2d General McClellan reached Fortress Monroe, where 
his entire army of 115,000 men was soon after assembled to begin 
the famous " Peninsula campaign " which has since been the cause 
of so much discussion and acrimony. It was a splendid army both 
in personal and material elements; it had the most enthusiastic 
admiration for and confidence in its commander; every possible 
resource of the government had been freely drawn upon for its 
equipment; it had the good wishes, the confidence, the tearful 
prayers of our loyal people. It was the first grand army and the 
first great enterprise of that army in our efforts to restore the 
Union. We read with pride and joyous anticipation that the first 
advance would be to occupy the historic Yorktown, where the 
surrender of Cornwallis had practically closed our Revolutionary 
struggle and made us a nation. It seemed a happy augury that 
the first great encounter to preserve that nation would occur upon 
that memorable field. Day after day we heard that our army was 
confronting the rebel earthworks there; that breaching batteries were 
being constructed and great guns brought up from the fort, and 
that the attack was about to be made. I recall the discussions 
* See Appendix " C." 



War of the Rebellion Series. 89 

around the Capitol, the newspaper dispatches, the official communi- 
cations from Washington, the private advices from our troops, and 
in all these there was the single hue of trust in the commander and 
his army and reliance upon success. So those precious spring 
days slipped away and the army confronted the earth-works 
stretched across the peninsula for thirteen miles and so scantily 
manned, and yet such a formidable bugbear that our splendid army 
was paralyzed there for thirty days. We fretted at this obstacle, 
though in our simple faith we believed it insuperable, and thought 
our final triumph none the less assured because of the delay. And 
when on May 5th the works were taken because there were no 
troops defending them, we still were deluded by the idea that this 
was scientific warfare and therefore the best. Our small success 
at West Point, on York river, and the evacuation of Norfolk by 
the rebels seemed to be a foretaste of the speedy occupation of 
Richmond. Then came the repulse of our fleet under Commodore 
Rodgers at Drewrys Bluff, only eight miles below Richmond on 
the James river, and on the 20th of May we read that our army 
had reached the Chickahominy — a new, strange name not yet lurid 
with bloody disasters and miasmatic poison. I need not recount 
the story of those eventful weeks of alternate hope and depression, 
of how the celebrated " Stonewall " Jackson foiled our Generals 
McDowell, Banks and Fremont in the Shenandoah country and 
then rapidly joined his forces with Lee. From Seven Pines and 
Fair Oaks to Malvern Hill the various battles were waged for five 
hot pestilential weeks, and after a successful battle at Malvern Hill 
we learned on the fourth of July that our army had on the previous 
day retreated in disorder to Harrisons Landing on the James river. 
We could not believe that this was the fatal end of our campaign 
" On to Richmond ; " we were beguiled by the announcement that 



90 Annual Report of the State Historian. 

a " change of base " had been accomplished, a new phrase that was 
accepted as conveying the idea of consummate strategy. How 
many of us remember our first acquaintance with that specious 
phrase and its temporary consolations. 

During these days of anxiety and suspense, matters had been 
very quiet in the military department of the State. Recruiting for 
regiments in the field was continued, but with very meagre 
results. We were absolutely bewildered by the conflict between our 
bright anticipations in May and the awful losses on the Chicka- 
hominy. If such an invincible army led by a " young Napoleon " 
could make no headway there was little encouragement for mere 
civilians to enlist. Strenuous efforts were made to return to the 
army the many absentees.* 

Governor Morgan had daily a meeting of his staff to discuss 
openly all matters, and the head of each department brought for- 
ward matters for inquiry and consideration. Inspector-General 
Arthur being resident at New York, I represented our department 
at these daily reunions, which were productive of great benefit and 
harmony to the military administration. The fearful slaughter in 
the battles on the York and James rivers gave us a realizing sense 
of war in its more awful aspects. The ready water communication 
enabled the transportation of many of the wounded to purer air and 

* In fact, absenteeism was a monstrous evil in the army. General Orders 
Nos. 60 and 61 of the War Department early in June, 1862, were directed 
against this insidious depletion of our active force. The latter orders said: 
" The great number of officers absent from their regiments without sufficient 
cause is a serious evil that calls for immediate correction," and this was in 
the very midst of the desperate struggle on the James River. Subsequently, 
in a Congressional investigation, it was asserted that hundreds of leaves of 
absence and furloughs from the Army of the Potomac during the Peninsula 
campaign were issued upon direct solicitation by Members of Congress. 
Such a scandalous misuse of official influence astonished us, but we subse- 
quently became more accustomed to the unwarrantable interference with 
military matters by our legislators. 



War of the Rebellion Series. 91 

better attention at the North, where the land was aflame with pity, 
sympathy and zeal. One steamboat brought a load of the wounded 
to Albany, where they were transferred to the hospitals and engaged 
the constant ministrations of the compassionate. The sanitary and 
Christian commissions now began on a large scale those benefi- 
cent and wonderful tasks that will make their names immortal. 
Surgeon-General Vander Poel's suggestion that a corps of volun- 
teer surgeons be organized to aid the regular medical staff in the 
field was approved by Secretary Stanton. General Vander Poel 
organized such a special corps, comprising some of the most highly 
quaHfied surgeons in the State_, who were commissioned by Gov- 
ernor Morgan and under Surgeon-General Vander Poel's super- 
vision rendered great aid in the field and hospital service during 
the terrible spring and summer of 1862. General Vander Poel went 
to Fortress Monroe in the latter part of April to superintend the 
transportation of the sick and wounded to the more bracing air of 
the North and made himself well acquainted with the needs of the 
medical service. 

The disasters to our troops in the Shenandoah country led to a 
requisition upon us in the latter part of May for all our available 
National Guard regiments for a three months service, and 8,588 
such troops were within a few days sent forward to Washington 
and the vicinity.* 

On June 3d were issued general orders for the enrollment under 
the recent militia law of all persons in the State liable to militia 
duty. This work, under the provisions of the law, was to be per- 
formed by the officers of the National Guard. It was directed that 

* These regiments were Seventh, Eighth, Eleventh, Twenty-second, 
Twenty-fifth, Twenty-seventh and Seventy-first. When their three months 
term of service expired on September ist, there had been nearly twice their 
number of new three year regiments sent to the field. 



92 Annual Report of the State Historian. 

the enrollment should be complete by July ist in order that the 
State might be prepared to meet further requisitions for troops by 
a draft from the great mass of the enrolled militia. There were, 
however, great differences of opinion in our staff council as to the 
expediency of abandoning volunteer enlistment and resorting to a 
draft. There had been two general orders issued providing for the 
organization of volunteers, one on November 26, 1861 (No. 113), 
and one on May 23, 1862 (No. 31), neither of which had accom- 
plished any considerable result. This, however, was not so much 
attributable to the methods and their details as enjoined by such 
orders as to the general apathy prevalent at that period originating 
in the military conditions. Early in January a mixed military and 
naval expedition under General Ambrose E. Burnside and Commo- 
dore L. M. Goldsborough had sailed from Fortress Monroe for 
the North Carolina coast and obtained a lodgment on Roanoke 
Island which was the base of an occupation on Pamlico Sound that 
was never relinquished. Then we had the good news about Forts 
Henry and Donelson in Western Tennessee. About the end of 
February General Butler and Captain Farragut left Fortress Monroe 
with a mixed military and naval force for Ship Island, in the Gulf 
of Mexico, and in April came the glorious news of the passage of 
Forts St. Philip and Jackson, on the Mississippi river, and then of 
the capture of New Orleans. In this same month (April 6-7) was 
fought the desperate battle of Shiloh or Pittsburg Landing in 
Tennessee near the Mississippi boundary, followed by our posses- 
sion of the Mississippi river down to Vicksburg. But all these 
successful enterprises were in the West and Southwest, and our 
attention in New York was directed more to the Army of the 
Potomac, largely composed of our regiments. In fact during the 
entire war our closest sympathies were with this army — we had 



War of the Rebellion Series. 93 

regiments in other armies, I might say in all other armies; we 
mourned over our defeats and exulted over cur victories where- 
ever and by whomever fought, but still the armies in Eastern 
Virginia were not only nearest in distance but closer to our hearts 
and our imagination. Fromi November ist to March ist that army 
was practically on guard in front of Washington, and the tiresome 
reiteration of its inaction, of its petty afifairs of parades or discom- 
forts, roused no such depth of interest or feeling as would stimulate 
recruiting. 

The enrollment of the militia, impeded by the absence of so many 
officers of the National Guard in service, was not half com- 
pleted when the series of disasters on " the Peninsula " ending in 
the retreat to Harrisons Landing, brought us face to face with the 
supreme peril of our cause and there was the most grave appre- 
hension throughout the North. Upon an original invitation by 
Governor Morgan, nineteen Governors of the loyal States united 
on June 28th in an address to the President proposing that " in 
view of the important military movements now in progress and the 
reduced condition of our effective forces in the field " they respect- 
fully request the President to call upon the several States for such 
numbers of men as would fill up the regiments in the field and also 
add largely to the volunteer armies then in the field, and furthermore 
expressing the strong desire of the citizens they represented " to aid 
promptly in furnishing all the reinforcements you may deem needful 
to sustain our Government." This vigorous address was answered 
in an equally prompt and vigorous tone by the President on July 
1st in a call for 300,000 additional volunteers, to be chiefly infantry. 

In the meantime the situation had been fully discussed and it was 
determined to adopt a new plan of recruitment, and one that, while 
stimulating local pride and emulation, would also engage the active 



94 Annual Report of the State Historian. 

assistance of eminent and influential men in every part of the State. 
There are thirty-two State Senatorial Districts, and in each of these 
a regimental camp was to be established, and a district military 
committee composed of twelve or more prominent citizens selected 
from both political parties.* On July 26. Governor Morgan issued 
a stirring proclamation setting forth the pressing need of reinforc- 
ing the armies and appealing to all patriotic citizens to aid.f Then 
began the most glorious and purely patriotic endeavor of our Em- 
pire State, when her vast resources and endurance were strained 
to the utmost with such an outcome in men, considering their 
numbers and quality, as has never been surpassed. Then the days 
of labor by the Governor, the stafT and subordinates seldom ended 
before midnight, and often were prolonged far beyond that hour. 
On July 7th were issued General Orders No. 52, prescribing the 
details of enlistment and organization of the troops to be raised 
under the President's call. Regimental camps were to be estab- 
lished in each Senatorial District, except in the first seven districts, 
comprising the counties of Suffolk, Queens, Richmond, Kings and 
New York^ within which metropolitan districts persons organizing 
regiments might select the location of the camp subject to the 
approval of the Governor. A commander of each proposed regi- 
ment was to be designated by the Governor, to be commissioned on 
its completion; and in addition an adjutant, quartermaster and sur- 
geon; the first two, upon the nomination of the commander, were 
to be appointed in advance by the Governor, and immediately mus- 
tered into service. Upon the application of persons approved by 

* Unfortunately I am not able to give a list of the committeemen, which 
would form rolls of honor similar to the lists of like patriotic " War Com- 
mittees " immediately before and during our Revolutionary War. 

t Among the many responses to this appeal, reinforced by patriotic heat, 
was the proposal of a Sunday school teacher in New York to raise a com- 
pany of soldiers to be composed of " professors of religion." No discrimi- 
nation as to sect was named, but probably it " went without saying " that no 
Quakers were expected to enlist in the choice company. 



War of the Rebellion Series. 95 

the regimental commanders, the Governor would issue certificates 
granting authority to enroll volunteers, and entitling each person 
so authorized to the commission of second lieutenant when not 
less than thirty men were enrolled by him and had been mustered; 
of first lieutenant when not less than forty such men had been 
mustered, and of captain when eighty-three, the minimum of a 
company, had been mustered. Provision was made for the mus- 
ter into service of the company and field officers when the proper 
number of recruits and companies had been mustered in. The 
pay of the enlisted men began from the date of enrollment, and 
of officers from the date of muster in. All the proper expenses of 
recruitment were payable by the United States mustering officers, 
and subsistence in camp was furnished by contractors, paid by the 
General Government. Clothing, equipments, etc., were to be issued 
to the proper regimental staff officers, upon requisitions upon the 
chiefs of the State military departments, who in turn obtained their 
supplies by requisition upon the proper officers of the General 
Government. There had been a great advance since the first 
levy. The Governor, as commander-in-chief, was now the supreme 
power and selected the commandants of the prospective regi- 
ments; authority to recruit came from him, upon the approval 
of these commandants, and every vestige of the system of election 
of officers had disappeared. We had learned that war was such 
a barbarous institution that it could not be conducted upon the 
democratic principles of our civil polity. The autocratic concen- 
tration of power in the Governor gave energy and harmony to 
our work, and this effect was manifested in every direction.* Now, 

* But this was in reality a violation of the State Constitution, which pro- 
vided that the militia should elect its own officers; and the volunteers were a 
part of the militia, for if they were not, then how could the Governor appoint 
and commission them? The United States Constitution provides that offi- 
cers of the United States shall be appointed by the President and Senate, so 
these officers of volunteers were not officers of the United States; and if 



96 Annual Report of the State Historian. 

too, we enjoyed fully the advantages of our Governor's position 
as major-general, which enabled prompt and favorable arrange- 
ments with the United States military establishment. Captain 
Henry C. Hodges, of the United States Quartermaster Depart- 
ment, was detailed as quartermaster on Major-General Morgan's 
staff. He was an excellent officer, efficient, vigorous and cour- 
teous. He is now a deputy quartermaster-general. Captain George 
W. Wallace, of the First United States Infantry, one of the unfor- 
tunate paroled officers of Twigg's command in Texas, was com- 
missary of subsistence on the staff. He is now a lieutenant-colonel 
on the retired list.* The contracts made through these officers by 
the Governor aggregated a large sum, of which I kept a record 
and a copy of each contract, with a debit and credit account of 
all deliveries of supplies and payments thereon, and upon my check 
of the accounts they were approved by the Governor. Under this 
call it became necessary to concentrate at New York the requisi- 
tions for uniforms, blankets, tents, etc., to be filled there by Lieuten- 
ant-Colonel Vinton, deputy quartermaster-general United States 
Army, whose depot of supplies was on Broadway near Canal street. 
This concentration of work in New York, where General Arthur 
was resident, and more particularly his superior ability, caused an 
exchange of places between him and General Van Vechten, the for- 
mer becoming, on July 9th, the quartermaster-general and the lat- 
ter, inspector general.f 

officers of the State, they were officers of the militia, the appointment of 
which that instrument concedes- to the several States. It was another 
instance of the supreme need to suspend certain constitutional obligations in 
order to save the Union. 

* Colonel Wallace was promoted major of the Sixth Infantry in 1862; lieu- 
tenant-colonel of the Twelfth Infantry in 1866. He was retired December 
15, 1870, and died 12 October 1888. 

t Regarding General Arthur's Headquarters, see Appendix B, " Head- 
quarters, Depots, Etc." 



War of the Rebellion Series. 97 

Congress during the session ended July 17th had provided that 
every volunteer enlisting for three years should receive, when mus- 
tered into service, one-quarter of the bounty of $100 provided by 
th6 act of July 22, 1861, and might also draw at the same time 
one month's pay. Tliese were inducements to some extent, since 
they gave the recruit a fund to leave with his family, but in the 
competition between counties and States there was being paid in 
Massachusetts and Connecticut a further bounty which placed us 
at a serious disadvantage, and the discussions at our stafif meetings 
led to the conviction that some further encouragement must be 
offered, and that to prevent rivalry and extravagant competition 
and outbidding, a uniform State bounty was advisable. Fortu- 
nately we had not only an energetic and courageous Governor, 
but an equally so Comptroller in Lucius Robinson, The State 
Constitution, in terms, forbade the payment of any money from the 
treasury or the contracting of any debt upon public account, except 
in pursuance of a law enacted by the Legislature. The Governor 
had power to convene that body, but this would delay action that 
must be immediate, if at all, and besides it was undesirable to 
add to the difficulties and distractions of that period by the con- 
vocation of a body that once in session would have power to trans- 
cend the purposes for which convoked. Tlie Governor and Comp- 
troller, after conferences with the officers of the principal banks 
at Albany and New York and the counsels of many prominent 
citizens, concluded to take the responsibility of borrowing and 
expending enough money to pay a bounty of fifty dollars to every 
recruit when mustered into service, enlisting either in the regi- 
ments about to be raised or in those in the field. These sagacious 
and intrepid officers believed that our patriotic citizens would insist 
that this action should be legalized by the Legislature at its next 
7 



98 Annual Report of the State Historian. 

session, and the general acquiescence and applause by the public 
press, when their determination was announced, seemed an earnest 
that they would not suffer.* 

On July 17th the Governor issued a proclamation setting fofth 
the desirability of a uniform bounty, the exigent demand for some 
action and that such a bounty of fifty dollars would be paid to each 
recruit. General Orders on July 19th prescribed the details of pay- 
ment of this bounty, one-half when the recruit was accepted and ' 
the other half when his regiment was mustered into service. Under 
this stimulant, but more particularly through the general popular 
sentiment as to the need of military reinforcements, the patriotic 
endeavor of the several district committees and the emulation of 
localities, the enlistments day after day exceeded by far any period 
of the war. The staff departments were humming like beehives; 
committeemen from every district were arriving and departing; 
authorizations to raise companies were issued daily by the hun- 
dred and every nerve and muscle were strained to keep pace with 
the popular ardor and to provide for the swarms of recruits at every 
camp. In the meantime the enrollment of the militia was slowly 
progressing, and as it was a menace of the much-feared draft, it ■ 
added to the incentives to rapid recruitment. I also had in hand 
the preparatory work for the several auditing boards for military 
claims, of which I was the secretary. The unprecedented rapidity 
of enlistments and their collection at so many camps caused the 
issue of General Orders No. 62, on July 28th, providing for a sys- 
tematic and regular inspection of the camps by the Inspector- 
General's Department. For this purpose Colonel John Bradley, 

* The total amount of the bounties paid under this arrangement reached 
$2,721,050, and the Legislature at its session in 1863 passed an act legalizing 
the payment and providing means to reimburse the patriotic banks that had 
advanced the funds. \ 



War of the Rebellion Series. 99 

who had been acting as our State agent at Washington, and Colonel 
Elliott F. Shepard, one of the Governor's aids, were attached to 
our department as acting assistant inspector-generals. The State 
was divided into four grand districts of inspection: General Van 
Vechten taking the metropolitan district of New York city, Long 
and Staten islands; to me were assigned the camps at Yonkers 
and Sing Sing, N^wburgh and Goshen, Poughkeepsie, Kingston, 
Hudson, Albany, Troy, Salem, Plattsburgh, Schoharie, Fonda, and 
Mohawk and Herkimer. The other camps were divided between 
Colonels Bradley and Shepard. A sketch of my duties under this 
order for three weeks may give a clear idea of the great work of 
reinforcing our armies that was so successfully and gloriously accom- 
plished by our State in the summer and autumn of 1862. On July 
29th I left Albany early for Newburgh, where, after a hurried con- 
ference with some members of the district committee, one of their 
number, Mr. A. Post, accompanied me to New Windsor to see 
Mr. A. Van Horn Ellis, the selected commandant of the regiment. 
Mr. Ellis had a beautiful residence on the banks of the river and 
every reason to enjoy life. He was one of the devoted men of 
the day who felt that their place was in the field of danger. After 
some talk as to the relative merits of Newburgh or Goshen as the 
location of the camp, I left for Kingston, where Mr. George H. 
Sharpe had been selected as commandant of what was to be the 
One Hundred and Twentieth Regiment. The camp was placed 
upon a plain near the village, and some recruits were already 
collected and under canvas. The adjutant and quartermaster were 
gaining some intelligence in their duties. On the 31st I visited 
Hudson, where David S. Cowles, a prominent lawyer, had been 
selected as commandant of the One Hundred and Twenty-eighth 
Regiment. Few recruits had as yet been collected, but the reports 



loo Annual Report of the State Historian. 

were very favorable. Here, as at Newburgh and Kingston, I was 
deeply impressed by the earnest and serious interest in military 
matters evinced by every one I met. The members of the district 
committees were very active, but it was the general popular sense 
of the gravity of the situation that was most noteworthy. On 
August 1st I reached Fonda, where many recruits were collected, 
as also at Mohawk, where the camp was being laid out upon a 
height above the river, opposite Herkimer. Upon my return to 
Albany I induced the Governor to modify his order that barracks 
should not be built, but tents issued for encampment, for such were 
the increasing numbers of enHstments that tents could not pos- 
sibly be procured in time. On Monday, the 4th of August, I 
inspected the One Hundred and Thirteenth Regiment at Albany, 
which was quartered at the " industrial school " barracks, occupied 
by us since April of the previous year. Many of the new regiments 
were to be commanded by officers of the regular army and others 
by experienced officers from our State volunteer regiments in the 
field. They thus went into service with a great advantage over 
those of the earlier levies. The colonel of the One Hundred and 
Thirteenth was Captain Lewis O. Morris, of the First Regiment 
Artillery, United States Army. He was killed before Cold Har- 
bor on June 4, 1864, and Major E. A. Springsteed was killed in 
action at Reams Station, Va., on August 25, 1864. The regi- 
ment had been converted into the Seventh Heavy Artillery. 

I reached Plattsburgh on the morning of August 5th, where the 
camp had been placed at the old United States barracks on the 
blufif overlooking Lake Champlain, south of the village. This regi- 
ment (the One Hundred and Eighteenth) was commanded by Sam- 
uel T. Richards, an experienced militia officer and excellent dis- 
ciplinarian, who had already begun the erection of additional quar- 



War of the Rebellion Series. ioi 

ters near the barracks. The next day I was at Salem, Washington 
county, where the One Hundred and Twenty-third Regiment was 
organizing under the command of Archibald L. McDougall, a young 
lawyer of Salem, and who died June 23, 1864, of wounds received in 
action near Dallas, Ga. Lieutenant-Colonel Franklin Norton of 
this regiment was killed at the battle of Chancellorsville, Va. 

At Troy, the next day, I found a large collection of recruits in 
a camp on the banks of the Hudson north of the city. The adjutant 
and quartermaster, overburdened by their regular duties, could give 
no attention to the discipline, and everything was in a disorganized 
state. Hon. John A. Griswold, a wealthy and prominent citizen 
of Troy, was the titular commander until relieved by Captain George 
L. Willard, Eighth Regiment Infantry, United States Army. I 
learned that the district committee was in session in the city hall, 
whither I repaired and made a most vigorous protest against the 
condition of the camp, threatening to advise the transfer of recruits 
to Albany. Being told that Mr. Griswold could not take active 
command at the camp, I induced the selection of Colonel Levi Cran- 
dell, an old militia officer, and who became lieutenant-colonel of 
the regiment (the One Hundred and Twenty-fifth). Colonel Wil- 
lard was killed at Gettysburg, and Major Aaron B. Myer died of 
wounds received in the Wilderness. I mention the names of the 
field officers of these regiments that were killed in battle to show 
the great mortality on that account. 

On the 8th I went to Schenectady to see if Prof. Elias Peissner, 
of Union College, could be selected as commander of the regiment 
in that district, but learned that he had accepted the command of 
a regiment organizing in New York, and which became the One 
Hundred and Nineteenth. Colonel Peissner was killed at the bat- 
tle of Chancellorsville, Va. The regiment in this district was the 



I02 Annual Report of the State Historian. 

One Hundred and Thirty-fourth, with camp at Schoharie, which 
I visited on the 9th and found some progress made. The tem- 
porary commander was Brigadier-General George E. Danforth, of 
the National Guard, but the colonel was Captain Charles R. Coster, 
first lieutenant Twelfth Infantry, United States Army, who had 
not yet reported for duty. From the 9th to the nth I was engaged 
in cleaning up my office work at Albany. 

The reports from all parts of the State were of a most encourag- 
ing character, and the regiment (One Hundred and Seventh) at 
Elmira was about complete and several others were nearly so. Gov- 
ernor Morgan was absolutely indefatigable. He had a vigorous 
physical constitution that enabled him to work sixteen hours a day 
in these momentous days, and everyone else responded, though 
some of them at the risk of health and life. Adjutant-General Hill- 
house had a great capacity for work and had an excellent staflf of 
clerks. The correspondence and personal conferences conducted 
in this office at this time were very large. Quartermaster-General 
Arthur exhibited great executive ability, though embarrassed by 
the failure of the United States officers to fill his requisitions. In 
fact, the unexpectedly rapid progress of enlistment astounded every- 
one.* On August iJth I went to New York to confer with Gen- 
eral Arthur about supplies for the One Hundred and Thirteenth, 
One Hundred and Fifteenth, One Hundred and Twentieth and One 
Hundred and Twenty-first regiments in my district, all of which 
were rapidly approaching completion. I also submitted plans of 

* On August 9th was published the order of the President, dated on the 
4th, for a draft of 300,000 militia to be called into immediate service for nine 
months, the maximum term under the act of July 17, 1862. General Orders 
No. 99 of the War Department provided that the draft should be conducted 
under orders of the Governors of the several States. The imminent pros- 
pect of a draft greatly stimulated the endeavors of the several localities to fill 
their respective quotas. An account of the enrollment and the reasons for 
abandoning the draft will be given later. 



War of the Rebellion Series. 103 

temporary barracks that I had recommended at the several camps, 
of light and rough construction^ sided and roofed with inch hem- 
lock boards and constructed by the recruits, among whom there 
were artisans of every kind. Separate buildings 96 feet long by 
20 feet wide, 13 feet high on the sides and 19 1-2 feet high at 
the roof peak, were of the most convenient size, enabling the use 
of 13-foot boards without cutting, except for large doors and gable 
windows at the ends. Four rows of bunks, each three tiers high, 
extended the full length, and afiforded accommodation in each build- 
ing for 180 men. The sides were not battened, but spaces werie 
left between the boards, affording sufficient ventilation, though the 
later regiments complained of this free admission of air in the 
cooler weather. The contractors for subsistence usually built in 
the same manner the mess rooms and kitchens, while the officers 
were generally provided with wall tents. Of course these struc- 
tures were flimsy and unsubstantial, but they subserved their pur- 
pose at a very trifling cost, since the lumber had a certain value 
after this temporary use. 

On the I2th I inspected the camp at Goshen, where five barracks 
such as I have described were completed, but the messroom and 
kitchens not being yet done the recruits were being boarded about 
town at a cost of about thirty-five cents each per day. Colonel 
Ellis, of this regiment (One Hundred and Twenty-fourth), and 
Major Cromwell were killed at Gettysburg. I went the next day 
to Sing Sing, where I found very little progress made and a gen- 
eral opinion that the camp should be located at Yonkers, which I 
telegraphed to Governor Morgan, and received permission to so 
change the camp. This change, however, delayed the completion 
of the regiment, which otherwise would have been one of the very 
first mustered in. It was organized as the One Hundred and 



I04 Annual Report of the State Histori-an. 

Tliirty-fifth Infantry, and subsequently became the Sixth Artillery. 
The colonel was Captain William H. Morris,* assistant adjutant- 
general, United States Volunteers. The lieutenant-colonel, J. How- 
ard Kitching, who succeeded to the command of the regiment, died 
January lo, 1865, from wounds received in action. At Kingston, 
the next day (August 14th), I found great progress had been made; 
444 men mustered and 400 morereported as enlisted; but the quarters 
were inadequate, and as none of the men were uniformed there were 
more of them loafing about the village than there were in camp, 
where they appeared merely as a mob. Adjutant Tuthill was so 
absorbed in his routine work that he could give no attention to 
other matters, and Colonel Sharpe was engaged in a personal can- 
vass of his district to urge enlistments, and so could not attend 
to the discipline in camp. Captain S. S. Westbrook had completed 
his company and been mustered into the United States service, and 

* General William H. Morris was born in Fordham, Westchester county, 
N. Y. Graduated from West Point in the class of 1851. He was assigned 
to the Second Infantry, but resigned in 1854 to become assistant editor of the 
New York Home Journal, where he was found at the outbreak of hostilities. 
He served in the defenses of Washington as captain and assistant adjutant- 
general from August 20, 1861, to March, 1862. In the Peninsula campaign 
he acted on the staff of General J. J. Peck and took part in the siege of 
Yorktown and the battles of WilHamsburg and Fair Oaks. He was ap- 
pointed colonel of the One Hundred and Thirty-fifth New York Volunteers, 
which later became the Sixth Heavy Artillery. As brigadier-general he was 
in command at Harpers Ferry and Maryland Heights from December, 1862, 
to June, 1863; in reserve at the battle of Gettysburg; engaged at Wapping 
Heights July 23, 1863; in the Rapidan campaign; in the action of Locust 
Grove, Va., November 29, 1863; in the Richmond campaign, Army of the 
Potomac; the battle of the Wilderness May 5, 1864; battle of Spottsyl- 
vania May 9, 1864, where he was severely wounded. He was mustered out 
of service August 24, 1864. Was brevetted major-general March 13, 1865, 
for gallant services in the battle of the Wilderness. He is the inventor of 
the conical repeating carbine and automatic ejecting revolver. He was the 
author of a system of infantry tactics. He was a member of the Constitu- 
tional Convention of the State of New York in 1867, chief of ordnance of 
the State of New York January i to October 26, 1870, and inspector-general 
January i, 1873, to December 31, 1874. 



War of the Rebellion Series. 105 

upon my suggestion was made acting commandant of the camp, 
where he soon assembled the recruits, who, though as yet deprived 
of their equipment, were well sheltered and fed. Indeed the sub- 
sistence furnished this levy was of an excellent quality, and the 
contractors seemed to have imbibed the patriotic fervor of the hour. 
In some cases the rations were enriched by extra articles furnished 
by the district committees. I recall butter as so furnished at Hud- 
son, and other " camp luxuries " at other places. At Hudson I 
found the camp on the agricultural fair grounds, and some need- 
lessly extravagant barracks being built, though I arrived in time 
to change the plans of three of them. Colonel Cowles, of this regi- 
ment (One Hundred and Twenty-eighth), was killed in action at 
Port Hudson. I then inspected the camps at Fonda and Mohawk, 
both placed upon sightly hills with excellent drainage, but far from 
any water supply. At both places the buildings were completed 
and a change of location unadvisable. These camps were fortunate 
in the contractor for rations. Air. John H. Starin, who has since 
become a very wealthy and prominent citizen of our State, but 
none of whose business concerns can have been more creditable 
than were these contracts to feed our recruits, in which he exhibited 
his great business sagacity and enterprise, supplemented by patriotic 
ardor. He supplied at his own expense water-works, whereby both 
these camps had an abundance of pure water. The regiment at 
Fonda (One Hundred and Fifteenth) was commanded by Colonel 
Simeon Sammons, Mr. Starin 's uncle, and that at Mohawk (One 
Hundred and Twenty-first) by Colonel Richard Franchot. The 
latter, who was then a member of Congress, had accepted the com- 
mand as lociim-tcncns for Lieutenant Emory Upton, of the Fourth 
Regiment Artillery, United States Army. On the i8th I was en- 
gaged all day in making the final provision of supplies for the One 



io6 Annual Report of the State Historian. 

Hundred and Thirteenth Regiment at Albany, which the next day 
was fully mustered, all bounties and advance wages paid, and on 
that evening (19th) started for Washington, being the first regi- 
ment going forward from my grand district. 

On the morning of the 19th I was at Plattsburgh, where every- 
thing was in fine condition, and at the evening parade about 650 
men of the One Hundred and Eighteenth Regiment were in line, 
exhibiting a state of discipline and training quite honorable to 
Colonel Richards and Adjutant Charles E. Pruyn, the latter of 
whom, subsequently promoted to the majority, was killed in action 
before Petersburg in June, 1864. I found several deserters in arrest, 
as also one Antoine Bouchard for assisting desertion. The prox- 
imity of the Canadian border at this point, readily accessible by 
Lake Champlain, made this one of the principal points for the exit 
to Canada of both deserters and copperheads. Mr. Ladue, the 
sheriiT of Clinton county, and his deputies were kept constantly 
engaged in guarding against these desertions. 

Military matters in Virginia were now more urgent and impor- 
tant than ever. General Pope was now in command of our main 
army, but the rebels, encouraged by McClellan's unsuccessful cam- 
paign, were threatening Washington. On August 9th our Gen- 
eral Banks had been defeated at Cedar Mountain by " Stonewall " 
Jackson, and there were indications of an advance in force upon 
the capital. The demand for reinforcements were almost daily, and 
Governor Morgan was straining every nerve to meet them. On 
the 20th I received an order from him to send daily at 8 p. m. a 
brief report of every matter of importance connected with the 
regiment I had inspected, particularly the date when ready to 
move, and my " proposed destination for the next ensuing day." 
From Plattsburgh I went to Salem, where I found the regiment 



War of the Rebellion Series. 107 

two-thirds full and in good condition. I took tea with Colonel 
McDougall and his wife at their pleasant home, where in less than 
two years she became one of the thousands of widows whose mourn- 
ing pervaded the land. I recall her gentle melancholy that even- 
ing as if dark forebodings assailed her heart. 

The next day, at Troy, I found the One Hundred and Twenty- 
fifth Regiment nearly full, and from there again to Fonda, where the 
One Hundred and Fifteenth only lacked a few of completion. 
Upon reporting in person to the Governor on the 23d, he said 
that he was much embarrassed about the payment of so many 
regiments to be completed almost simultaneously; that Paymaster- 
General George Bliss had accepted as assistants in this work Col- 
onel Arden, one of his aides, and Mr. Frederick G. Burnham. But 
the Governor did not deem this aid sufficient, and had proposed 
that I should also make these payments. Colonel Bliss, a man of 
remarkable energy and activity, ever insistent upon the control 
of his own field of labor, had protested against my detail, saying 
he would not be responsible for me under his bonds. The Gov- 
ernor, however, did detail me, being himself my only surety, and 
I subsequently paid the bounty to twelve regiments, the total sum 
received by the enlisted men in these being $553,225 (to 11,065 
men). I will add here that Colonel Bliss was soon reconciled to 
my detail, treated me with kind consideration and publicly thanked 
me for my assistance. I paid regiments at Fonda, Mohawk, Syra- 
cuse, Buffalo, Portage, Jamestown, Brooklyn, Troy and Staten 
Island. Thus in inspection and pay duties I was enabled to view 
the progress and character of this levy in all parts of the State. 
This payment of bounty was the most severe and exacting labor 
I ever performed; everything was pressing and hasty; daily tele- 
grams to the Governor from the President or Secretary Stanton 



io8 Annual Report of the State Historian. 

urged the need of prompt reinforcements, and the Governor, in 
turn, furiously spurred all his subordinates to incessant activity. 
The regiments were mustered into the United States service on the 
day before or often on the very day of payment, and the muster-rolls 
were in many cases very confusing and misleading, particularly 
where there had been a cotemporaneous equalization of companies, 
so that the officers and the men themselves were uncertain where 
they belonged. At the same time the State bounty was being 
paid the United States paymaster was paying the advance 
of United States bounty and the month's pay, and the allotment 
commissioners were procuring the allotments of pay. There was 
the further difficulty that a part of the men had received a moiety 
of the State bounty and another part had not, and as the regiment 
was under orders to march the very next day after the payment, 
there was no chance for the correction of any errors. I was totally 
unversed in the counting of money, and these separate sums, a 
thousand for each regiment, had to be counted, not behind a quiet, 
safe, bank counter, but in the open air, amid a hundred distrac- 
tions, with a rough packing case for a table, and sometimes in 
a breeze that threatened to disperse money and pay-rolls in a 
most irregular manner. Our money was in the then novel form 
of " greenbacks " or Treasury notes,* fresh from the printing 
press, and the soft, green pigment constantly coated my fingers 
so that I had to have a basin of water beside me in which to wash 
them at frequent intervals. 

* These " greenbacks " were an interesting novelty at every camp where I 
had disbursed them. It may be appropriate to say here that the National 
Bank system inaugurated by Secretary Chase was practically the same as 
the Free Bank system in operation in New York State since 1842 — at least 
in the basic method of securing the notes issued for circulation. The system 
had been imperfectly imitated in other States, but in New York the security 
exacted was as stable as that on which the National Bank notes rest. 



War of the Rebellion Series. 109 

My first payment was that of the One Hundred and Fifteenth 
Regiment, at Fonda, on August 27th, where there had been a hur- 
ried equaHzation of companies the night before and a recast of the 
muster and pay rolls by Adjutant Horton, a most worthy man, but 
of a nervous temperament and lack of strict business training that 
seriously disqualified him for his office, and his rolls were in such 
a confused state that the United Sitates mustering officer, the 
United States paymaster, Major Paulding, and I were all day 
engaged in endeavors to properly decipher them. I found another 
morbidly nervous adjutant when I paid the One Hundred and 
Thirtieth Regiment, at Portage, on September ist, and what an 
anxious day that was. The downpour of rain was copious and 
constant, and I did not finish my task until near midnight, paying 
for five hours at the broad door of a leaky barrack, by the light of 
two flaring tallow candles stuck in beer bottles. A relay of com- 
pany officers tried to screen the flame with their hands, but so 
inefifectually that we were occasionally in darkness, except for the 
dim rays of a stable lantern. Poor Cawee, the adjutant, resigned 
a month later and shortly after ended his life by suicide. 

The amount of work performed by Colonel Bliss within two 
months was a remarkable exhibition of physical endurance, and 
I felt myself the terrible strain of the daily struggle with respon- 
sibility and endeavor, with wakeful nights of travel and prepara- 
tion. While on this duty I met Colonel Bliss, at New York, on 
September 8th, when he finally succumbed for a day or so to a 
severe attack of diarrhea, impatient and fretful over even so small 
a delay. 

During the first week of this duty I was so engrossed with it 
that I did not read a newspaper, and so was unaware of what was 
going on in the field, and I recall my grief and depression, on reach- 



no Annual Report of the State Historian, 

ing Buffalo on the morning of August 31st, to learn of Pope's 
great defeat at the second battle of Bull Run — ill-fated name. I 
got this news from Mr. Charles Van Benthuysen, of Albany, who, 
with his wife, was at the same hotel, and who, being a red-hot 
copperhead, though usually disguising his disloyal sentiments in a 
politic manner, could not conceal his glee over a disaster that he 
said proved the failure of the war. While I did not conceal my 
disgust at his sentiments (our fathers had been business partners 
many years before), I was eager to get the papers and assure myself 
of the situation, and blue enough it looked. There probably never 
was a darker period in the whole war than after this last of General 
Pope's failures, and this darkness was made more distressing by 
the sneers and chuckling of the copperheads on one side and the 
" I told you so's " of McQellan's partisans, who attributed all 
our misfortunes to the displacement of their favorite and hero. 
On September ist occurred the battle of Chantilly,* another bloody 
contest, and the last one under General Pope, who, the next day, 
relinquished command of the Army of the Potomac. 

On August 30th the Governor, by proclamation, announced that 
he beheved the quota of the State, by the organization of new regi- 
ments and by enlistment of recruits for those in the field, was 
about filled, therefore the State bounty for the former would cease 
after September 5th, but be continued for recruits for the older 

* In this battle was killed General " Phil " Kearny, a characteristic " beau 
sabreur." I saw him at our office in Albany when he came in June, 1861, to 
see General Patrick. Both had served in the Mexican War, where Kearny 
lost an arm. He had been unable to get a suitable command from the 
authorities of New Jersey, his native State, and had come to see if he could 
not get him a commission from New York. This matter was not decided, 
but he soon after was appointed by the President a brigadier-general of 
volunteers. I can recall his gallant soldierly bearing and his empty sleeve, 
that in the early days of our military tutelage appealed sharply to my 
sympathy. 



War of the Rebellion Series. hi 

regiments. Our quota, under the call of July 2, 1862, was 59,700, 
and as active recruiting- did not begin until July i8th, nearly 60,000 
men had been enlisted in six weeks; a remarkable result. Giving 
proper credit for popular patriotic zeal, and for the extraordinary 
exertions of the State authorities, there is no doubt they were aided 
in this vast achievement by President Lincoln's order on August 
4th for a draft of 300,000 militia, to serve nine months, to be made 
under the act of July 17, 1862. 

During this period many recruits for our regiments in the field 
had been forwarded. The conduct of the General Government 
regarding the recruiting service was as irregular and spasmodic as 
its disposition regarding the raising of new regiments. General 
Orders No. 105 of the War Department, issued December 3, 1861, 
provided a detailed system for recruiting, and Major J. T. Sprague, 
First Infantry, was appointed general superintendent of that serv- 
ice for our State, but on April 3, 1862, this service was abandoned 
and the officers detailed to it were ordered to join their regiments. 
Two months later, on July 6th, the service was resumed. Of course 
such desultory efforts were not productive of much good; indeed, 
the long delay of the army in winter quarters before Washington 
repressing recruiting as being needless, and the subsequent disasters 
in the essay " On to Richmond " were even more discouraging. I 
recall protests against the publication in the newspapers of the ter- 
ribly long lists of killed, wounded and missing as seriously imped- 
ing efforts to reinforce the army, as if the repression of such facts 
would not have bred imaginary horrors a hundred fold more vivid. 
Pope's later campaign had produced many such lists of losses. At 
the second battle of Bull Run fifty-two commissioned officers of 
New York regiments were killed in action, and by this can be judged 
the further number who died of wounds and of the losses in the 
ranks. 



112 Annual Report of the State Historian. 

During August and September there were reports of reverses in 
Kentucky, and on September 2d General McQellan was made gen- 
eral commanding the Army of the Potomac, vice Pope. On Sep- 
tember 8th, General Lee having crossed the Potomac at the fords 
near Leesburg and encamped at Frederick, issued an appeal- 
ing address to the people of Maryland, who, during the whole war, 
were presumed by both sides as friendly. It w^as the first invasion, 
in force, of the loyal States, and we beheld with alarm a great 
army forty miles north of Washington, and we had to oppose it 
an army that had suffered fearfully from overconfidence and 
poor strategy, but by its unhappy vicissitudes converted into an 
army of stalwart veterans inured to but undismayed by defeat. 

On September 14th was fought the battle of South Mountain, and 
on the 17th that of Antietam, both severe engagements, and substan- 
tially drawn battles, though after the latter Lee was able to recross 
the Potomac practically without molestation. In these battles fifty- 
seven New York regiments were engaged, two of which, the One 
Hundred and Seventh and One Hundred and Eighth Infantry of 
our third levy, had left the State only a month previously, and at 
Antietam received their " baptism of fire." Our regiments lost more 
than seventy commissioned officers killed on the field. Tliese new 
lists of casualties again filled the land with mourning, while the 
facile return of the enemy to the south bank of the Potomac was 
discouraging. It did seem as if thousands of lives were being sac- 
rificed without any permanent advantage, though this may also have 
been the dismal conclusion of the Confederates after their repulse 
in Maryland.* It was a strange coincidence that their President, 
Davis, had by proclamation named the i8th day of September as 

* The failure to pursue Lee was probably attributable to the exhaustion 
of two severe battles in which all our force was engaged, leaving no fresh 
reserves to follow up success. 



War of the Rebellion Series. 113 

a day of prayer, inviting- the people of the Confederate States to 
assemble for worship and to render thanks for the triumphs over 
our armies at Chantilly, Manassas, etc., and that on that very day 
Lee's broken columns should be on their retreat southward. 

*We had in August and September several alarms that the Con- 
federate iron-clad Merrimac No. 2 was about to sally out from 
the James river and devastate our seaboard cities. Portentous 
descriptions of the invulnerability and powerful armament of this 
vessel were received through Southern channels, but she failed to 
appear. Incidentally, may be mentioned here, the vast mass of 
rumors, originating in fervid imaginations, or concocted with pur- 
poses more or less malign, that vexed us during the whole war. 
Some of these frauds were punished, notably an impudent one 
hatched by a New York newspaper man who had a chance to cool 
his heated fancies in the casemates of Fort I^afayette. The public 
mind was so occupied by the facts and fallacies concerning the 
details of the war that it now seems astonishing that any attention 
could be given to other matters. In those far-ofif days we first 
became accustomed to the cry of "Extra! Extra!!" often startling 
us in the midnight and suggestive of slaughter and bereavements.f 

* During the period when paying bounty to regiments near New York, 
I found General Arthur overwhelmed by the amount and multiplicity of 
duties devolving upon him, and such time as my own duties as paymaster 
did not exact I aided him, since there was no ofKcer of sufficient rank in 
his office to transact important business. I had been his assistant when 
inspector-general and we were college mates, and I know he had confidence 
in my fideHty and capacity. The result was that he induced the Governor 
to detail me to assist him, particularly in transportation matters, and from 
that time— October ist, 1862— until I finally left the State military service 
on January i, 1869, my official headquarters were in New York city. 

t It was an unknown blessing in those days that the era of the " yellow 
journals " had not come. Their rumors and lies during the recent Spanish 
war hatched an " extra " every half hour, and even more often, for Wall 
Street consumption. 

8 



114 Annual Report of the State Historian. 

As a whole, the newspaper correspondents in the field were con- 
scientious and careful men, and such erroneous dispatches as were 
sent were attributable to the confusion and distractions incident to 
battle, only a small part of which any single observer can see, and 
to competitive endeavors to give their papers the earliest news 
before it could be verified. We gradually became inured to the 
possibly untrustworthy character of the first accounts of military 
events. 

On September 226. President Lincoln issued his ever-memorable 
proclamation declaring the emancipation on January i, 1863, of all 
slaves in the States then in rebellion. This famous State paper 
worked powerful influences in every direction. It was the first 
authoritative announcement that the extinction of slavery had 
become the objective point of the war for the preservation of the 
Union, since the limitation of emancipation to the revolting States 
could not prevent as its logical result the extinction of slavery 
throughout the restored Union. There had been a certain lack of 
courage and candor on this point. The relation of slavery to seces- 
sion, kept in the background by the South, had not been acknowl- 
edged by our side for reasons of policy that in part were specious 
only. There was a fear of disafifecting the border slave States still 
loyal, but in reality the effect on these was slight. There had been 
a reserved idea that the inviolability of slavery would be a bridge 
over which in extremity the seceded States would return, but this 
was a hopeful fallacy. The proclamation invigorated the North 
and gave to our friends in England such support as enabled them 
to enforce the continuance of a neutrality that was- obnoxious to 
the ruling classes and probably to a majority of the English people. 
It had the same repressive effect in France. But while the proc- 
lamation was joyfully received by the great mass of our people, it 



War of the Rebellion Series. 115 

gave precision and vigor to the protestations of the " Copperhead 
element,"* which now with renewed virulence accused the admin- 
istration of tyranny, disregard of the Constitution and subversion 
of all law and right. 

* The prominent representative of this element at Albany was Colonel 
Walter S. Churchy whose audacity and skill in dialectics and caustic invec- 
tive were remarkably exasperating. While we were all enraged by the 
vaporings of the Copperheads, there was no general effort to prevent their 
freedom of utterance. Some of them wore as a badge the head of "Liberty," 
made by filing away the material surrounding that effigy on the large copper 
cent piece of that day — a " copperhead " indeed but at the same time a 
reminder of the privilege of perfect liberty. I believe that the injurious 
influence of this class of citizens was not so much an encouragement of 
the rebellious States as the intimidation of our own government, which 
magnified the numbers of the Northern protestants and their influence on 
public sentiment. 



No. 4. 

THIRD LEVY (CONTINUED) -APRIL I, 1862, TO 
DECEMBER U 186Z 



THE tenderness of the " secession sympathizers " in the North 
for the institution of slavery is a remarkable instance of the 
insuperable bigotry of political partisanship. They inveig-hed 
against the edict of General Butler at Fortress Monroe in 1861 that 
slaves were "contraband of war"; and while asserting that they 
were property, they claimed their immunity from the general mili- 
tary liabilities of property. Every act or movement in the war that 
tended to weaken the institution so sacred in their eyes called forth 
their unmeasured denunciations. They had a regular bureau for 
the dissemination of pro-slavery literature, and it is wonderful in 
the light of to-day to read these publications deifying and conse- 
crating the vile monster of human servitude a few brief months 
before its extinction. And the most sad efifect of this propagandism 
of the degradation of the negro race was the stimulation of the 
hatred of the blacks so long cultivated in the benighted minds of our 
foreign population, and finding expression in such acts of vio- 
lence as the attack of an infuriated mob upon the inoffensive 
colored working men and women in Brooklyn on August 4, 1862, 
and to the frightful atrocities during the New York riot in July, 
1863. I think that the loyal men of those days still living can for- 
give and forget the Southern rebels and give them fraternal greet- 



War of the Rebellion Series. 117 

ing, for their education (civil and religious), self-interest, in fact 
every condition of their lives might find an excuse for their revolt. 
But the copperhead of the North can never be forgiven — he sinned 
in the light, in a light after April, 1861, such as that that over- 
came Saul on the roadside.* 

In the latter part of September there was a remarkable con- 
vention of Governors of Northern States at Altoona, Pa. Gov- 
ernor Morgan had declined the invitation to attend; there were 
present the Governors of Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wis- 
consin, Michigan, Rhode Island, Virginia, Illinois, Iowa, Indiana 
and New Hampshire. The motive of the conference was, I believe, 
to impress upon the President the necessity of a more vigorous 
policy; the apparent failure thus far to suppress the rebellion was 
the alleged cause of great popular dissatisfaction. The Governors 
went from Altoona to Washington and had audience with the 
President, but nothing practical resulted from their concerted action. 
In fact the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation a day or so 
before their meeting took from the latter any importance it other- 
wise might have had. Governor Morgan was shrewd or fortunate 
in being able to decline a participation in this meeting because of 
the exigency of his official concerns. 

Before October i (1862) we had sent into the field forty-three 
infantry regiments, four battalions and one battery of artillery, 

* The headquarters of these secession sympathizers in New York city 
was the old " New York Hotel " on Broadway, between Washington and 
Waverley places, which was demolished about 1896. This hotel had been 
a favorite with visitors from the Slave States. Many can recall the groups 
who lounged about the hotel entrance in the war times and whose coun- 
tenances were infallible indices of the varying military conditions; if these 
were favorable to us the faces were glum and dejected, but if we had 
reverses there were exulting smiles and derisive laughter to give a sharper 
flavor to our discomfiture as we passed by. 



ii8 Annual Report of the State Historian. 

being a total of 43,350 officers and men, and leaving in camp in 
the incomplete organizations a little over 10,000 more, which, with 
the 14,305 recruits sent to the field, much more than filled our quota 
of 59,700 men under the President's call of July 2d for 300,000 
volunteers for three years. 

From October ist there was a perceptible sag in the enlistments. 
As before stated, the State bounty of $50 for enlistment in the new 
regiments ceased on September 5th, and by a subsequent proclama- 
tion by the Governor, the same bounty for recruits for regiments 
in the field ceased on September 30th. There had been additional 
bounties given by committees and town and county officials, but the 
announcement that the quota of three-years men was filled relaxed 
personal and local interest, though a similar quota of nine-months 
militiamen remained to be furnished. 

Of the supreme and glorious achievement of the State of New 
York in July and August, more will be said later, and the subject 
of the contemplated draft will be considered now. 

Our experience in 1861 had not been altogether favorable as to 
the policy of a continued dependence upon volunteering to supply 
troops should the war be greatly prolonged. After the first burst 
of enthusiasm had filled our thirty-eight regiments under the first 
levy, the progress of recruitment was very slow, the most potent 
influence for a while being the efforts in cities and counties to 
enlist full regiments. The raising of the second levy extending 
from August i, 1861, to March 31, 1862, and excluding the irregular 
regiments raised during the first excitement, but remanded to State 
authority, comprised about 75,000 men, whose enlistment extended 
over a period of eight months. Under the State General Orders of 
November 26, 1861, and May 23, 1862, not a single regiment was 
raised, though every inducement was given to those ambitious of 



War of the Rebellion Series. 119 

a commission. Adjutant-General Hillhouse, in his annual report 
sent to the Leg-islature in January, 1862, recommended the adoption 
of a militia system similar to that of Germany, based upon the 
liability to military service of every citizen of proper age and con- 
dition of body. Obviously such a system could not be immediately 
established in the midst of a great war. Judge-Advocate-General 
Anthon recognizing the principle of compulsory service, tried to 
apply it practically and equitably in the militia law drafted by him 
and enacted April 25, 1862, substantially as introduced. This pro- 
vided for an enrollment of all citizens between the ages of eighteen 
and forty-five, with exemptions for physical disability, also of fire- 
men who were in active service or had served their time as firemen, 
and of those exempt under the laws of the United States. The 
active force of the militia was called the National Guard, and com- 
prised eight divisions under a major-general and geographically 
coterminous with the eight grand Judicial Districts of the State; 
thirty-two brigades corresponding with the Senatorial Districts 
and one hundred and twenty-eight regiments corresponding with 
the Assembly Districts, with a proper contingent of cavalry and 
artillery. Where regiments were not formed or hlled by volunteers 
from the body of the militia, they were to be filled by draft from the 
respective districts. The entire militia thus organized and with a 
maximum strength of over 130,000 officers and men, exclusive of 
cavalry and artillery, could be ordered into the United States ser- 
vice at once, in whole or any part of the same, and provision was 
made for an organization in the same geographical districts of 
additional regiments, etc., until the supply of men was exhausted. 
The enrollment of the militia under this law was ordered on June 3, 
1862, and, as before mentioned, progressed very slowly and 
irregular. 



120 Annual Report of the State Historian. 

The act of Congress of July 17, 1862, provided that the Presi- 
dent might call forth the militia of the States for a period of nine 
months, and " If by reason of defects in existing laws, or in the 
execution of them in the several States, or in any of them, it shall 
be found necessary to provide for enrolling the militia and other- 
wise putting this act into execution, the President is authorized in 
such cases to make all necessary rules and regulations; and the 
enrollment of the militia shall in all cases include all able-bodied 
male citizens between the ages of eighteen and forty-five, and shall 
be apportioned among the States according to representative popu- 
lation." This sketchy and tentative provision was the first step 
toward the assertion of the absolute military supremacy of the 
United States. I have mentioned (pages 33-34) the early dis- 
cussions as to the status of the volunteer forces and my own opinion 
that they were a part of the militia of the several States.* The 
military power granted in the Constitution to the United States is 
comprised in three allowances in Section 8, Article i, conferring 
power on Congress " to provide for the common defence," " to 
raise and support armies " and " to provide for calling forth the 
militia to execute the laws of the Union, suppress insurrections and 
repel invasions." It was held by those favoring the provision in 
the act of July 17, 1862, above quoted, that the constitutional grant 
of power to provide for the general defence and to raise and support 
armies was so large and definite as to be practically unqualified. 
But it must be considered in connection with the third power " to 

* Some of the Constitutional points raised regarding the military powers 
granted to the General Government and the reservation to the States of 
certain powers regarding the militia have been previously touched upon, 
but it seems expedient to repeat them in discussing the culmination of the 
gradual extinction of most of these reserved powers arising from the 
supreme exigencies of the nation. 



War of the Rebellion Series. 121 

call forth the militia " upon which dependence is to be placed in 
the supreme emergencies of insurrection or invasion. It is obvious 
that the framers of the Constitution were apprehensive of too great 
military power in the general government; their reading of history 
convinced them that the greatest danger encountered by a republic 
was that of conversion into a military dictatorship; in this as in 
many other directions their indisposition to concentrate power led 
them into undue conservatism. That the supreme defence of the 
Union was made dependent upon the militia L further shown by 
the grant of power to Congress to provide for the organization, 
arming and discipline of the militia, so that if drawn from different 
States and incorporated in one army there should be uniformity in 
these important conditions, and the President is made commander- 
in-chief of the mihtia when in the service of the United States. 
Among the ten declaratory amendments to the Constitution pro- 
posed in the first Congress and subsequently ratified by the States 
was this, "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security 
of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall 
not be infringed." In all these provisions the militia is assumed to 
be an institution of the States, and is so recognized in their several 
Constitutions and laws. The law of 1862 was, therefore, one of 
those radical departures from precedent deemed necessary for the 
preservation of the Union, and as subsequently expanded and 
enforced in the law of March 3, 1863, was vituperously denounced 
by those who claimed that there should be a strict adherence to 
the letter of the Constitution, even if it involved its destruction, and 
out of this denunciation sprang the hideous New York riots of July, 
1863. 

Upon August 9, 1862, at " 3 p. m." were issued from the War 
Department* " General Orders, No. 99," giving detailed directions 



122 Annual Report of the State Historian. 

for the enrollment of the militia in the several States, and for a 
draft in each State of its quota of 300,000 militiamen for nine 
months, and of any additional number required to make up the 
deficiency in the quota of 300,000 three-years volunteers under 
the President's call of July 2d. " The Governors of the respective 
States will proceed forthwith to furnish their respective quotas of 
the 300,000 militia called by the order of the President." There is 
a peremptory flavor in this " will proceed forthwith " until then 
unprecedented in communications to Governors of States from a 
Federal source. It denotes the superlative urgency of the situation 
and the need to exercise every power, assured or doubtful, in order 
to sustain the Union. There is in the austere tone a reflection of 
Secretary Stanton's rigor, rather than of President Lincoln's mild 
inflexibility. The orders continue this tone, " The Governors of 
the respective States will cause an enrollment to be made forthwith 
by the assessors of the several counties or by any other officers to 
be appointed by such Governors, of all able-bodied men between 
the ages of eighteen and forty-five within the respective counties,'* 
and full details are given as to the methods of enrollment, the 
classes of persons exempt and the procedure in making the draft. 

The enrollment under the State law was at this time partially 
completed, but it was evident that the draft could not be based 
upon it, since the State law provided for the filling of the one 
hundred and twenty-eight district regiments, and no credit was 
allowed for men already furnished, the proportions of whom to the 
population were very unequal in the several districts. State General 
Orders were accordingly issued on August 13th giving the text 
of the War Department orders * and further providing for putting 

* The quota of each county for total State draft of 60,000 proportioned 
upon the basis of the census of i860. 



War of the Rebellion Series. 123 

them in effect. General Anthon had general charge of the enroll- 
ment in New York and Kings counties, and Colonel Campbell, 
assistant adjutant-general, supervised it in the remainder of the 
State, and the enrollment was completed and the lists filed on 
October 14th. The imminent prospect of a draft caused great 
excitement throughout the State, and large numbers attempted to 
avoid the risk of conscription by fleeing to Europe or Canada. So 
early as August 8th Secretary Seward gave notice that no passports 
would be issued by the State Department to persons liable to a 
draft before the quotas were filled, and a strict surveillance was 
kept upon all out-going steamers to prevent the exodus of such as 
were liable. A similar guard was kept upon all routes to the 
Canadian frontier. Indeed, I recall the examination of all passen- 
gers on a train going west from Buffalo on September 3d. Soon 
after leaving the city a deputy provost-marshal went through each 
car and questioned every man whose apparent age indicated him as 
a probable conscript. It was a sharp reminder of the old adage 
" inter arma leges silent." At this time the expressive word 
" skedaddle " was adopted into the vernacular, to denote flight from 
the draft and the opprobrious epithet " skedaddler " was added to 
that of " copperhead " in the daily commination of all patriotic 
citizens. Of course the tender consciences of those who at this 
time constituted themselves the special guardians of the Constitu- 
tion, " ruat coelum," were horrified by this new act of despotism. 

The enrollment was to be made under the personal charge of the 
assessors and supervisors in each county, aided in the cities by the 
aldermen, and the lists were to be filed with the sheriffs. On 
October 2d it was announced by General Orders that as the quota 
under the call of July 2d for three-years volunteers had been filled 
with an excess of twenty thousand men to apply on the quota of 



124 Annual Report of the State Historian. 

August 4th, volunteers for nine months would be accepted to com- 
plete such quota until the final orders for the draft. These orders 
were issued on October 14th thus, " The enrollment of the militia 
of the State being now nearly completed, a draft from the popu- 
lation liable to bear arms will be made on the tenth day of November 
next, equal in the aggregate to the number of men required on that 
day to complete the quota of one hundred and twenty thousand 
apportioned to this State."* The draft was to be made under the 
supervision of General Anthon, aided by commissioners and sur- 
geons, one for each county except New York and Queens, for 
which there were respectively twenty and fifteen of both officers, 
the selection in all cases being made from men of the highest 
reputation. Regulations were prescribed for the assemblage, sub- 
sistence and transportation of the men from the county seat to the 
camps, and there was a republication of General Orders of the War 
Department of August 29th, relative to supplies for the drafted 
men. One extract from these orders illustrates the needs of those 
trying days, "As the sudden call for volunteers and militia has 
exhausted the supply of blankets fit for military purposes in the 
market, and it will take some time to procure by manufacture or 
importation a sufficient supply, all citizens who volunteer or are 
drafted, are advised to take with them to the rendezvous, if possi- 
ble, a good, stout woolen blanket. The regulation military blanket 
is 86 X 66 inches and weighs five pounds." To be forced into the 
cruel war, and invited to bring the blanket off your bed, too, seemed 

* It is apparent that the differences of period of enlistment were not yet 
taken into account and a recruit for nine months counted for as much as 
one for three years. Within a month or so later the principle that one 
" three-years man " should be equivalent to four " nine-months men," and 
that all periods of enlistment should have their proper relative value was 
established and obtained to the end of the war. 



War of the Rebellion Series. 125 

to the captious like a mockery of misery. The population of the 
State by the census of i860 was 3,880,735, and the enrollment gave 
764,603 men as of suitable age, and of course exclusive of about 
150,000 volunteers in field and camp. Of those enrolled, 139,198 
were returned as exempt. This latter number was proportionally 
large since it embraced not only those exempt under the United 
States law but a far larger number under the State law, such as all 
clergymen, judges, justices and officers of the courts, all officers and 
employees in the military and civil service of the State, Shakers, 
Quakers, professors and teachers, commissioned officers of the 
militia honorably discharged after full term of service, all officers 
and members of the organized militia (about 200,000) and many 
other classes, including " idiots, lunatics, paupers, habitual drunk- 
ards and persons convicted of infamous crimes." These last were 
properly included, not only as indicative of the honorable service 
to be rendered by drafted men and the exclusion therefrom of the 
mentally and morally unworthy as also of the physically unfit, but 
as a corrective of the ill-advised action of some judges in this and 
other States who in the early days of the war gave convicts the 
option of imprisonment or enlistment in the volunteer army, a 
degradation of the military service not only vicious but manifestly 
impolitic. I do not recall the number exempted for physical disa- 
bility, but there were some complaints that these were excessive, 
and suggestions that the names and causes of disability be pub- 
lished as a corrective. The reservoir of drafted men liable to be 
drawn on was 625,405, and had the entire quota of 60,000 been 
required, it would have taken about one in ten. To complete the 
account of this enrollment it may be added that on November 7th, 
by an order, it was announced that the number of camps for 
enlisted and drafted men would be reduced, because the quotas 



126 Annual Report of the State Historian. 

in so many counties had been filled by enlistments and in others 
the deficiency was too small, and on the 9th it was informally 
announced that the draft was postponed until further orders, but 
in fact it never was resumed under the then existing law and orders. 
In reality, trustworthy reports of persons enlisted since July 2d, and 
to be credited upon the quotas, could not be procured, no proper 
records had been kept by the towns or counties; there were many 
disputes as to whether men were to be credited to the place of their 
residence or to that of their enlistment where they often received 
a local bounty. At once there arose a contention regarding the 
credit in accordance to the terms of enlistment — i. e., whether one 
" three-years man " should or should not count for as much as 
three " one-year men." Other contentions between localities as to 
credits on quotas were subsequently sources of infinite trouble, mis- 
representations and disaffection. 

The portentous preparations of this draft, that proved a myth, 
had very important results; it stimulated the several towns and 
counties to fill their quotas and in this respect it served an excellent 
purpose; on the other hand it caused the grant of local bounties 
which through fear and competition, reached great sums in succeed- 
ing years; indeed in the last four months of 1862 these reached as 
high as four hundred dollars per man in some places. But worst 
of all it ended the period when patriotism was a motive for enlist- 
ment and substituted for it money in the hand of the " volunteer " 
and the frantic desire of his fellow townsmen " to fill the quota " in 
any way and at any expense. 

During October, eleven full regiments and Hwo battalions of 
infantry and three batteries of artillery were mustered into service 
for three years, most of the men in which had been enlisted prior 
to the first of that month, the slowness of enlistments retarding 



War of the Rebellion Series. 127 

their completion, and one of the regiments being organized by con- 
soHdation of incomplete organizations. During November, there 
were mustered in eight infantry regiments for three years, five of 
them formed by consolidations, and one regiment, the Tenth 
National Guard of Albany, for nine months. During December 
one regiment and one battalion of infantry were mustered in for 
three years, as also five batteries of artillery. At the end of the 
year there were remaining in camp two regiments of infantry, one 
being the Nineteenth National Guard of Newburgh, that were 
subseqifently mustered in for nine months and counted upon 
this levy, which sums up as follows : sixty-three regiments and three 
battalions (with regimental numbers) of infantry, one regiment and 
four companies of sharpshooters, four battalions artillery (one 
battalion afterwards incorporated into the Fifth and the others 
organized into the Tenth Regiment), ten batteries of artillery and 
one regiment of cavalry (the Eleventh, mustered in June, 1862, but 
included in this levy) ; all of the above enlisted for three years, and 
in addition there were three regiments of infantry enlisted for nine 
months. The total number of men furnished was 78,904 for three 
years, and 1,781 for nine months. 

During October there was an animated political canvass of the 
State, the Republicans having nominated for Governor, Brigadier- 
General James S. Wadsworth, and for Lieutenant-Governor, Lyman 
Tremain, of Albany, and the Democrats Horatio Seymour for Gov- 
ernor, and David R. Floyd-Jones for Lieutenant-Governor. General 
Wadsworth had been one of the Free-soil Democrats who aided in 
the formation of the Republican party. He was a man of large 
hereditary wealth, of excellent capacity, high character and marked 
public spirit. He was named as one of the major-generals for our 
first volunteer regiments before it was known that no general 



128 Annual Report of the State Historian. 

officers would be accepted, and was appointed by the President a 
brigadier-general of volunteers in August, 1861, and was the military 
governor of Washington at the time of his nomination. Lyman 
Tremain had been a Democrat of the " old Hunker " or " hard " 
stripe until the breaking out of the war, when he joined the Repub- 
lican party and became an earnest supporter of every effort to sus- 
tain the Union. Air. Seymour had been Governor in 1853-54; he 
was a man of fine character and an excellent example of the higher 
t}-pe of the pro-slavery Democracy of the Northern States. Mr. 
Floyd- Jones had been Secretar\^ of State in 1860-61. 

While the utterances of the Democratic newspapers and speakers 
were for " a more vigorous prosecution of the war," there was also 
a general censure by them of about every movement by the adminis- 
tration. The election on November 4th resulted in a majority for 
Seymour of 10,752. The total vote was 70,000 less than two years 
before and indicated the large number of voters in the military serv- 
ice and, therefore, debarred from the polls. Another potent ele- 
ment in the defeat of Wadsworth and Tremain was the disaffection 
of Thurlow Weed, who was always implacably hostile to that 
element in the Republican party derived from the old Democratic 
party. Weed's influence was omnipotent with the men who had for 
years been his political instruments in the Whig party. 

General Wadsworth was at his own request detailed to active 
service in December, 1862, and was conspicuous in the battles of 
Fredericksburg and Gettysburg. He died on May 8, 1864, from 
wounds received two days before in the battle of the Wilderness. 
A great many interpreted the result of this election as a vote of 
lack of confidence in the National Administration, and many strong 
utterances in this direction were made. At a political jollification 
meeting in New York, on November loth, Fernando Wood said: 



War of the Rebellion Series. 129 

" I do not understand the Governor-elect if he would not stand up 
for his State against any Federal usurpation," having direct refer- 
ence to the draft then impending. John Van Buren, looking to 
a submission of vexed questions to Congress, "thought it best before 
an election of representatives the President should declare an 
armistice." Much eloquence was expended in condemning the 
President's Emancipation Proclamation and in eulogizing General 
McClellan. The latter officer had been relieved of the command of 
the Army of the Potomac by General Bumside on November 7th,. 
at Warrenton, Va. This was the end of General McQellan's 
military career. He was a good organizer and had excellent 
executive qualities. His services in the drill and discipline of the 
raw troops assembled about Washington in the winter of 1861-62 
were of incalculable value. Not only did they acquire the necessary 
tactical training but by frequent brigade and division reviews they 
were massed in such numbers as to inculcate confidence and mutual 
assurance of strength and support. This restoration of confidence 
was absolutely essential after the disastrous surprises and panics 
that had so often distinguished the Union forces on the line of the 
Potomac. Thus the morale of the regiments engaged at Bull Run 
and Ball's Bluff was restored, and instead of a congeries of mobs 
about the Capital we had a drilled and disciplined army. Probably 
no officer in our army could have accomplished this preparatory 
work so well as he, and it was only when he undertook the active 
operations of a great campaign that he was overtasked. In an 
estimate of his military capacity I do not think his operations in 
West Virginia should count for much; they were a series of 
skirmishes by untrained forces on both sides. He started for the 
Virginia peninsula in April, 1862, with a trained, organized and 
well-balanced army enthusiastically devoted to him. The plan of 
9 



130 Annual Report of the State Historian. 

campaign had been devised and elaborated by himself, and an 
excellent plan it was, for he possessed great skill in military con- 
ceptions ; it was in their execution that he failed. The President and 
Secretary of War were well disposed toward him and he had the 
hearty good wishes and prayers of the loyal people of the whole 
country. Whatever practical military ability General McClellan 
possessed fitted him for defensive rather than aggressive warfare. 
He was well versed in military engineering, and as one of the three 
officers of our army commissioned to the Crimea in 1854 he saw 
the grand results of Todleben's genius in the earthworks about 
Sebastopol, and they gave him a great respect for intrenchments. 
The thirty days delay before the feebly manned works at Yorktown 
ruined his elaborate campaign against Richmond. He was also 
lacking in that enterprising, persistent spirit that is forever pushing 
on, and in that iron will and self-confidence that in the supreme 
moment do not hesitate to sacrifice many lives that more may be 
saved. Such a rigid, unbending will is not compatible with that 
amiability that made " Little Mac " loved by his soldiers, who had 
yet to learn that the successful warriors are forged from sterner 
stufif. His last great battle at Antietam was a defensive one against 
invasion, and where all his valuable qualities could be displayed.* 
Most fortunately for him the Northern Democrats, who foresaw 
the extinction of their party unless it had a support in the Union 
armies; selected him as their corner-stone, and aware of this he 
permitted political purposes to color his military plans and even 
find expression in his official papers. There had been much dis- 
appointment through our failure to actively pursue Lee after the 

* It is also credibly asserted that he had a copy of General Lee's orders 
giving the plan of battle and disposition of his troops, which had been 
captured in somfe way. This information gave General McClellan great 
advantage. 



War of the Rebellion Series. 131 

battle of Antietam; it was naturally argued that a beaten army with 
a river like the Potomac across its line of retreat could be utterly 
demolished. This, however, does not accord with the experience 
in our war; in none of the great battles of the East was there a rapid 
and effectual pursuit; in none of them did the victor have a reserve 
unengaged in the main contest and fresh for such active duty, nor 
was there on either side in any such battle a contingent of cavalry 
large enough and so efficiently armed and drilled as to convert a 
retreat into a rout or a surrender. In fact the military function of 
cavalry had already much changed at the time of our war. 

The unopposed passage of the Potomac by Lee caused another 
popular cry for action, and the newspapers were vociferous for an 
advance. The report that the army was hampered by a lack of 
shoes was derided. In the autumn of 1861, said they, we were 
beguiled by the story that McClellan was delaying until the leaves 
dropped from the trees so that our marksmen could see the enemy 
and more readily slaughter them; after the leaves had fallen came 
the adhesively retarding mud — and now it is " shoes " that are 
lacking. It seemed ridiculous to plead the same privations as were 
endured by our poverty-stricken army at Valley Forge, nearly a 
century earlier. But in reality the Army of the Potomac was in 
good condition and largely reinforced by new regiments. All the 
regiments and batteries remaining in our State on November ist 
were turned over to General Banks, who was to relieve General 
Butler at New Orleans and carry on active operations in the 
Mississippi valley; these comprised eleven regiments of infantry 
and five batteries of artillery. Some of the other of our new regi- 
ments went to the Army of the South, some to North CaroHna, 
others to the Army of the Tennessee, and four infantry regiments, 
the One Hundred and Thirteenth, One Hundred and Twenty-ninth, 



132 Annual Report of the State Historian. 

One Hundred and Thirty-fifth and One Hundred and Thirty-eighth, 
were from October, 1862, to February, 1863, materially increased in 
force and converted into heavy artillery regiments and assigned 
to occupy the forts encircling Washington.* The remainder of 
the third levy was incorporated in the Army of the Potomac, which 
in December, under General Burnside, crossed the Rappahannock, 
and on the 13th fought the disastrous battle of Fredericksburg, in 
which our losses were very heavy. Seventy New York regiments 
participated in this battle. In the West there had been some suc- 
cesses, though the rebel General Bragg had, on October ist, 
ostentatiously and impudently inaugurated a Governor at Frank- 
fort, Ky., but after the severe battle at Perryville, nine days later, 
retreated to Tennessee. The year ended with the completion of 
preparations for the battle of Murfreesboro, one of the most hotly 
contested battles of the war and, like so many of them, without 
apparent advantage to either side. 

On January ist Governor Morgan handed over his trust to Mr. 
Seymour and became a private citizen, since he had stipulated in 
accepting the position of major-general of volunteers that not only 
would he accept no pay for services in that capacity, but that his 
tenure of the place should cease with his term as Governor. 

* They were increased to twelve companies, divisioned into three bat- 
talions, each commanded by a major, and were respectively named as the 
Seventh, the Eighth, the Sixth, and the Ninth New York Artillery. After 
General Grant's frightful losses in the Wilderness early in May, 1864, in 
response to his request for reinforcements, General Halleck ordered these 
heavy artillery regiments to the front. Each regiment was as large as the 
average brigade of the Army of the Potomac, as then constituted. The 
" heavies " received their baptism of fire at Spottsylvania Court House, 
Va., May 19, 1864. Their losses were very severe. At Cold Harbor the 
Seventh lost its colonel, Lewis O. Morris, one adjutant, one captain, one 
first lieutenant and one second lieutenant. The Eighth lost its colonel, 
Peter A. Porter (of Niagara Falls), its lieutenant-colonel, who died of the 
wounds he received, one major, three captains, four first and eight second 
lieutenants. 



War of the Rebellion Series. 133 

These first two years of the war were far more important in their 
relations to the State than the succeeding two years; in them were 
begun all the military experiments in the raising and organization 
of troops; after December, 1862, there was no pure volunteering, 
and money alone became the incentive. The General Government 
assumed a larger control in the raising of troops and but few new 
organizations were added to those in the field. Of the thirteen 
regiments of infantry raised after December 31, 1862, only one or 
two rendered any efficient service. Nineteen regiments of cavalry 
and three of artillery were organized after that date. This is a 
meagre list compared with that of 1861 and 1862, which comprised 
one hundred and seventy-one regiments infantry, twelve cavalry, 
eleven regiments, two battalions and thirty-four batteries of 
artillery, two regiments of engineers and one regiment and four 
companies of sharpshooters. Of course these numbers in them- 
selves are no disparagement to the later period, when the effort was 
mainly to recruit the veteran organizations in the field, rather than 
to raise new ones, but they indicate the diminished influence of the 
State authority in the later period. 

Of all these regiments the early ones in the third levy were com- 
posed of the best material. The conditions for such an outcome 
were favorable; the failure of McClellan's campaign against Rich- 
mond, followed by Pope's disasters, brought us face to face with 
the peril of our cause, and demanded every patriotic eft'ort and 
sacrifice. Death in field and hospital, mutilation of wounds, 
malarial poison, rebel prisons, in fact all the horrors of war were 
now familiar to us, and going to the field was now a stern reality, 
and those who enlisted knew all the direful chances to be 
encountered. 

The formation of regimental camps in all parts of the State 
aroused local emulation which was practically guided by the district 



134 Annual Report of the State Historian. 

committees composed of eminent citizens who by their " gratuitous, 
unremitting and efficient efforts " aided in the rapid recruitment of 
the regiments. The popular interest and anxiety found expression 
in pubHc meetings in all parts at which earnest appeals were made 
to succor our endangered armies. Such a meeting was held in 
Union Square, New York, on the evening of July i6th, and another 
in the City Hall park on August 27th, both largely attended, as was 
one in Brooklyn on September 3d. Colonel Corcoran, of the 
Sixty-ninth Regiment of our State militia, composed exclusively 
of Irishmen, who had been made a prisoner of war at Bull 
Run on July 21, 1861, was released August 15th by exchange 
and became a marked figure at these meetings, where his pres- 
ence and speeches aroused great enthusiasm on the part of our 
Irish population. Then there was the stimulus of the bounty 
offered by the United States and State amounting to seventy-five 
dollars in hand and correcting the evils arising from the tardy pay- 
ment of troops in the field. The delay in payment had been so 
serious as to cause much pauperism in the families of the soldiers, 
and which, though relieved by public and private charity, seriously 
deterred enlistments. 

Our State Legislature in January, 1862, voted an appropriation 
of money to be advanced to the United States for payment of our 
troops, a part of which was used for that purpose and subsequently 
refunded by the United States Pay Department. The sum of 
seventy-five dollars was a fund to be left for family use and not a 
mere mercenary inducement like the later large bounties. Recalling 
the character and condition of the men who enlisted in the rural 
districts in July and August, I cannot believe that the sum of 
seventy-five dollars was in itself a provocative, and it only served 
as a small guaranty that dependent families should not suffer. The 



War of the Rebellion Series, 135 

payment of this bounty caused a more thorough physical inspection 
of the recruits, and under the direction of Surgeon-General Vander 
Poel there was, in addition to the examination by the regimental 
surgeons, a rigid examination by surgeons selected by that officer; 
these were Dr. Mason F. Cogswell at Albany, Dr. William C. Wey 
at Elmira and Dr. William H. Thomson at New York, who rejected 
a large number that had passed the regimental surgeons. The 
regiments that left the State in August and September contained 
the very cream of our military class — young, robust, patriotic and 
intelligent. In some cases farmers brought their sons to the camp 
to see them enlisted, and in many cases fathers and sons were 
enrolled together. At some of the camps I inspected in July the 
recruits so soon as enlisted were furloughed to return home and 
help in the harvest-field. The ingenuous and unsophisticated 
character of some of these recruits was touching. I recall being 
asked by a bright-eyed youth who had enlisted in a company, the 
second Heutenant of which used to be the recruit's old schoolfellow 
and playmate, if he could not be permitted to mess with his friend 
in the field. Although the war was a year old, its ruthless extin- 
guishment of social, domestic and moral laws was not yet generally 
apprehended. I think the most inspiring spectacle in my tours of 
duty was presented at Jamestown, where upon my arrival early in 
September I found that, the date of the regiment's departure (One 
Hundred and Twelfth) being announced for an early day; the rela- 
tives and friends from both counties in the district, Chautauqua and 
Cattaraugus, had driven into town for a farewell visit to the 
" soldier laddies." As I approached the camp ground, the road 
for half a mile was Hned each side by vehicles of the visitors, their 
horses tied to the fences; the camp itself was thronged; fathers, 
mothers, sisters, brothers and lovers were having last interviews 



136 Annual Report of the State Historian. 

with the boys in blue; many were the affecting scenes, and for a 
while the strict discipline was relaxed in deference to an occasion that 
affected every heart. The visitors brought home-made viands to 
enrich for that day the plain camp fare, and many a stalwart boy 
unmindfully tasted then for the last time the toothsome pies and 
cakes his mother made^ and that often recurred to him in those 
coming days of " hard tack " ere the fatal bullet pierced him. These 
scenes of pathos were enacted at many camps. 

The health of the men was excellent. The summer weather 
encouraged the constant ventilation of the rough barracks, and 
there were none of those diseases incident to crowded quarters. 
The only disorders that seemed prevalent were diarrhea and other 
bowel complaints, caused by change of water and diet, probably 
aggravated by the large use of fresh vegetables in the subsistence 
furnished by the contractors. The inspector-general and assistants 
were particularly charged with the proper enforcement of discipline 
in the camps, and in spite of the general ignorance this was an 
easy task. The only serious exceptions were riotous outbreaks by 
soldiers in what was called the " Empire Brigade," at East New 
York, one in August and another at a later date, when the Seventh 
Regiment National Guard was put on duty there. But this was 
in an organization composed largely of city " roughs." 

One indication of the excellent character of the men in these 
regiments was the large allotments of their pay toward the sup- 
port of families. These in the One Hundred and Twenty-fourth 
Regiment, encamped at Goshen, reached an annual sum of $109,956, 
and in others was nearly as large. These results were greatly aided 
by the public-spirited and gratuitous efforts of the allotment com- 
missioners of this State.* 

* See Appendix A. 



War of the Rebellion Series. 137 

These regiments were also fortunate in their commanding officers, 
ten of whom were taken from the United States service, four from 
other New York regiments in the field, which also supplied many- 
other field officers. 

A remarkable feature of this levy was the slackness of recruiting 
in the great cities included in the first seven districts (New York, 
Kings, Queens, Suffolk and Richmond counties). Of the 39,787 
enlisted men sent to the field before October ist, the proper quota 
of these counties would be 12,547, but they furnished only 3,043 
men. A part of this was due probably to the fact that the cities 
had on previous levies furnished more than their quotas, and to 
the large number of naval enlistments, which were almost wholly 
m New York and Brooklyn, but did not count in their quotas. 
Beyond these reasons, however, were the closer and more intimate 
relations of the committeemen in the country to their " constitu- 
encies " and the stronger local sentiment. Of course in the end 
all districts had to furnish their quotas, but it was finally through 
liberal bounties rather than any sentiment. These city regiments 
were also composed of much poorer material. It was computed 
that over one-half the total desertions from this levy during the 
period of enlistment occurred in New York and Brooklyn, attrib- 
utable not only to the inferior class of recruits, but the ease of 
secretion in large cities. In August a reward of five dollars was 
oflfered in these cities for the apprehension of a deserter, and the 
police did arrest some. It was in these city regiments that the 
only material disturbances occurred as has been before mentioned. 
I recall an official visit to the One Hundred and Fifty-eighth Regi- 
ment when encamped at East New York, and being shown at the 
guardhouse a very large collection of bottles of liquor attempted 
to be smuggled within the lines by recruits and their friends. The 



138 Annual Report of the State Historian. 

proximity of a great city to an encampment was a constant source 
of annoyance and anxiety to the ofificers. 

In September I paid the bounty to the One Hundred and Forty- 
fifth Regiment in camp at New Dorp, Staten Island. It was 
ostensibly being raised by Colonel William H, Allen, who com- 
manded the First Regiment New York Volunteer Infantry, mus- 
tered into the United States service at New York on May 7, 1861. 
This was a distinctively New York city regiment, composed of 
what were known in those days as " Bowery boys," A bill pre- 
sented to me for audit in 1862 was for " medical stores " for this 
regiment in camp in April, 1861, and which comprised " 120 gal- 
lons bourbon whiskey, 42 gallons pale sherry, 21 1-2 gallons pale 
Otard brandy, 40 gallons cabinet gin and 24 dozen Allsop East 
India ale," and nothing more. Of course I could not allow such 
an extraordinary array of drugs which, without doubt, never went 
into any hospital, but enlivened the officers' mess; but it is a fair 
indication of the character of this regiment. The First Regiment 
was ordered to report to General Butler at Fortress Monroe early 
in May, 1861, and the very next month Colonel Allen exhibited 
his lawless character. On June 28th he was arrested by order 
of General Butler and subsequently tried by court-martial on sev- 
eral charges. On September 12th the President approved the 
sentence that he be cashiered. It was like his rare impudence to 
assume that the Governor would give him another commission. 
The One Hundred and Forty-fifth was quite as boisterous as the 
First Regiment had been, and I had an amusing illustration of it. 
Among the extraordinary appointments of those days was that of 
a noted New York lawyer, known as " Dick " Busteed, to the rank 
of brigadier-general. Why this was done no one could tell, since 
there was good reasons to believe that he would never get a com- 



War of the Rebellion Series. 139 

mand in the field. To give him some employment he was directed 
to inspect the regiments organizing about New York, and in one 
of my official visits to the New Dorp camp I found General 
" Dick " there in all the glories of a new uniform. Tliis regiment 
went to the field under Colonel Price, was disbanded in a year and 
the men incorporated in other regiments.* 

While the early regiments of this levy were of the superior char- 
acter mentioned, the later ones, with few exceptions, were of a much 
lower grade, and as the draft increased and with it the amount 
of local bounties, the result was reflected in the men who responded. 

Mention must be made of the effort to carry out the provisions 
of the new militia law of April. The enrollment was completed in 

* So far as I know General Busteed never had an opportunity to exhibit 
his mihtary qualities, except in airing his uniform about town, but he pro- 
fessed a strong desire to flash his maiden sword in the field. I recall his 
coming to see General Arthur at our Walker Street Headquarters in Octo- 
ber, 1862, when I was present. He said he had made up his mind to run 
down to Washington and get Secretary Seward to have him put in active 
service. A day or so later he returned and gave an account of his trip. 
" I got to the Secretary's house," he said, " late in the evening, and when 
he saw me he seemed astonished and asked me if I had been ordered to 
come, and when I said no, he told me that Secretary Stanton had issued 
an order that any officer found in Washington without orders to report 
there should be arrested and confined in the Old Capitol Prison, and that 
I had better get back to New York as soon as possible by the midnight 
train, saying that as I had escaped the scrutiny of the guard at the railroad 
station I might be as lucky on my return. So I skulked back, fortunately 
escaping the provost marshal's dogs, and here I am." His discomfiture 
was so comical that we roared with laughter, in which Busteed joined. 
After he left us we concluded that the Secretary was glad to get rid of him. 
One of the nuisances to the President, Secretary Stanton and other officials 
was the congregation of officers at Washington away from their stations 
and intent on getting promotions and other favors. At one time it was a 
trite saying that you could not throw a stone at a dog in Washington and 
not hit two or three brigadier-generals. Early in the Reconstruction era 
President Johnson appointed Busteed a United States District Judge in 
Alabama, probably through Secretary Seward, who appeared to have some 
interest in him. He doubtless had legal acquirements, but I never learned 
of his judicial career in those troublous times in the South that followed 
the end of the war. 



I40 Annual Report of the State Historian. 

an imperfect manner and out of the 128 regiments of National 
Guard only 59 regiments, with an aggregate of 22,154 officers and 
men, had been organized. This incomplete result, which was not 
greatly increased until the war ended, did, however, serve an excel- 
lent purpose, and National Guard regiments entered the United 
States service for short periods in 1863 and 1864, besides render- 
ing important services within the State. The general plan initiated 
by that law still remains in operation. 

In drawing to a close this account of the military transactions 
under Governor Morgan the total number of the men sent to the 
field should be given. My own data being lost, I give the report 
made by Adjutant-General Sprague on February 18, 1863, in 
response to a request of the Legislature for information as to the 
number of men enlisted and turned over to the United States Gov- 
ernment by this State since April 16, 1861, and which is probably 
a correct summary from the official records: 

Mustered into United States service for 3 months 15,922 

Mustered into United States service for 9 months 2,560 

Mustered into United States service for 2 years 30,250 

Mustered into United States service for 3 years 173,321 

Total 222,053 



As practically none were so mustered between January i and 
February 18, 1863, the total represents the achievement by Gov- 
ernor Morgan's administration. The report of the adjutant-general 
in 1859, made to the War Department, gave the militia force of 
New York State as 418,846 officers and privates, so the State had 
responded by sending one-half its available force as so published, a 
wonderful achievement indeed. I cannot leave this topic without 



War of the Rebellion Series. 141 

some general reflections upon the whole body of troops sent out 
by our State during the entire war, which numbered, as reported 
by United States Provost Marshal General Fry, in February, 1866, 
455,568 individuals, or reduced to the standard of three-years' en- 
listment, to 380,980 men, or about 17.9 per cent, of the whole num- 
ber furnished by all the States, while the quota of the State, based 
upon the census of i860 was only 17.2 per cent., without allowing 
for the large naval enlistments in our State or for the larger pro- 
portion of arm-bearing men in the new States. 

Disregarding the mixed motives of patriotism, ambition, cupid- 
ity or frivolity that led to enlistments in this State, motives that 
obtained equally throughout all the States, I am confident that the 
people of no other State surpassed those of New York in the 
promptitude of their responses to the exigent needs of their coun- 
try or in the character and efficiency of those who responded. To 
those citizen-soldiers is due the meed rather than to those who 
supervised their organization and equipment. And I wish to say 
here that I have not consciously misrepresented or disparaged those 
who enlisted by any mention of their motives as revealed to me. 
As time goes on there is a disposition, more and more, to exalt all 
who enlisted as patriots and heroes, so that laws are passed in 
Congress even to condone desertion and crown it with a pension. 
It was my rare opportunity to see close at hand the elements of 
our volunteer armies, and I must express my impressions without 
any gloss of exaggeration or depreciation. No one can surpass 
me in profound respect and praise for the large proportion of men 
who enlisted from pure patriotic feeling or in gratitude to those 
who died or were grievously wounded on the battlefield, or died 
or were disabled by illness contracted in and incident to that serv- 
ice. But there were at the bottom of this military mass the dregs 



142 Annual Report of the State Historian, 

represented by the poltroons, skulkers, deserters and bounty- 
jumpers. There was not a battle or skirmish that did not have in 
its rear and on its flanks a fringe of these vagabonds, who, dropping 
from the ranks, sought shelter and left to their comrades the perils 
of the assault. These are now raised to the same plane as those 
who rendered good service — they are pure patriots, heroes, Union- 
saviors, entitled to honor, glory and all that the most generous of 
nations can bestow. I cannot refrain from some protest against 
such injustice to the true veteran soldiers and to the truth of history. 
By the end of November the strain imposed upon the State to 
meet the demand for troops was almost wholly relaxed. There 
were a few incomplete organizations, some of which remained for 
the coming new State officers to exercise their prentice hands on. 
It had been a very strenuous strain for four months, during which 
every day, including the Sundays, had brought its added burdens. 
I can recall one day — a Sunday at that — that certainly burdened 
me. General Arthur was at Albany, and on the Saturday of a week 
of great toil for all, I had allowed all the leading subordinates to 
leave early in the afternoon, not to report again until Monday, since 
they needed some relaxation, so I was practically alone. Late in the 
day I received telegraphic advices of the sudden movement of three 
regiments for New York, one from the west by the Erie Railroad, 
and another from the west and one from the north to arrive by the 
Hudson River road, all to arrive on Sunday forenoon at diflferent 
hours. I had a further dispatch from general headquarters direct- 
ing these regiments be sent immediately forward to Washington 
en route to the army. I could not recall our absentees, as I did 
not know where they had gone for their brief vacations. On Sun- 
day, by the use myself of relays of hacks, I was able to provide 
for the needs of these regiments, getting arms and accoutrements 



War of the Rebellion Series. 143 

for two of them, rations served at the Park barracks for two and 
at the Battery barracks for the other, and transportation for two 
by the railroad to Philadelphia via Jersey City and the other by 
the then New Jersey Southern railroad route via Sandy Hook. 
The last regiment did not leave until midnight. Fortunately Colonel 
Welch, assistant ordnance officer, was on duty that day and ready 
to issue the arms, etc. I mention this incident only as exemplifying 
the great pressure of those stirring days. 

The later work of this period had been much increased by- the 
difficult and delicate work of consolidating incomplete companies 
and regiments. In this I took no part, being detailed to other 
duties, and the consolidations were effected by General Van Vechten, 
whose tact and courteous ways alleviated much of the disappoint- 
ment, rancor and jealousy incident to the exclusion of so many 
supernumerary officers. 

As the general staff officers have always been considered as per- 
sonal selections by successive Governors, and the new administra- 
tion would take charge on January ist, the month of December 
was largely occupied in the completion of unfinished business and- 
in the settlement of accounts. The auditing board created by 
Chap. 397, Laws of 1862, consisted of the inspector, judge advocate 
and quartermaster generals, who were authorized to examine and 
audit claims against the State for expenses incurred in raising vol- 
unteers, for which purpose an appropriation of $500,000 was made 
to pay audited and proper claims. Generals Van Vechten, Anthon 
and Arthur composed this board, of which I was, ex officio, secretary. 
Many sessions were held in December and some claims audited, 
but the principal achievement was the establishment of the prin- 
ciples governing the audit. I may say here that the board remained 
in existence until April, 1868, when I prepared the final report, show- 



144 Annual Report of the State Historian. 

ing a total disbursement of $294,948.92, or only about three-fifths 
of the appropriation, a remarkable accomplishment in our State 
finance, and what is quite as satisfactory, about the whole of this 
sum has been refunded to the State upon the presentation of the 
vouchers to the United States. 

Another board, comprising the same officers, and of which I was 
also secretary, audited the claims of our militia regiments for uni- 
forms, etc., worn out or destroyed in their three months' service in 
1861, for which purpose $50,000 was appropriated. 

There was also the settlement of heavy accounts for supplies for 
the third levy delivered on contracts made by Governor Morgan, 
but payable directly by the United States. 

In leaving that chamber in the old capitol where he had labored 
so assiduously and with such a conscientious sense of duty Gov- 
ernor Morgan had every reason to congratulate himself. Under 
conditions the most grave and urgent the State had responded 
promptly and nobly to every just demand upon it. Governor Mor- 
gan was not a constructive statesman, nor had he the gift of oratory, 
but he did have what was more important in his position in that 
crisis, an excellent administrative ability, trained and seasoned by 
his extensive experience as a merchant. As Governor and major- 
general of volunteers, he was sagacious and untiring. His own 
remarkable physical powers led him to overrate those of his subor- 
dinates, some of whom broke down under the unremitting toil of 
the last half of the year 1862. He assumed large responsibilities 
and expected all of us to imitate his example when confronted by 
an exigency requiring prompt relief. His natural traits and mer- 
cantile training made him exact and exacting in all financial mat- 
ters, and, if anything, inclined to be too parsimonious. As an 
example of his economic ideas may be stated the inadequate pay 



War of the Rebellion Series. 145 

of the overworked generals on his staff, which was put at that of 
a major in the United States service; but these were of his " miUtary 
family," from whom he expected sacrifices in those trying- days. 
His rare mercantile abilities were displayed in the contracts for 
quartermaster and commissary stores in 1862, which bred no 
defalcations or scandals. My official account of the terms and mag- 
nitude of these transactions was accidentally destroyed. 

Adjutant- General Hillhouse (of Geneva) had been a member of 
the Senate and subsequently was State Comptroller and Assistant 
United States Treasurer at New York. He was a methodical, assid- 
uous and conscientious official. 

General Arthur held three positions on the staff: engineer-in- 
chief, January i, 1861, to April 11, 1862; inspector-general, April 
12 to July II, 1862, and quartermaster-general, July 12 to Decem- 
ber 31, 1862. He administered these somewhat incongruous 
functions with singular ability, and under his auspices, aided 
by distinguished engineers, military and civil, reports of great 
value upon the defensive needs and works of the State were 
made to the Legislature of 1862. As head of the quarter- 
master's department in New York, both acting and actual, he 
showed unusual executive ability both in routine and in occa- 
sional fields of business and under conditions very difficult and com- 
plex. As an instance of his shrewdness there was saved in the 
transportation expenses of the third levy $43,174.13, being that 
sum less than the allowance by the United States. He was a man 
of fine and attractive personal qualities, and Governor Morgan 
almost invariably insisted that General Arthur should accompany 
him on his official visits to Washington. Of his subsequent career 
as collector of the port, Vice-President and President there is no 
need to say anything here. 
10 



146 Annual Report of the State Historian. 

Surgeon-General Vander Poel, who had held the same position 
under Governor King, 1857-8, was not only a good physician but 
also had a high administrative capacity. He selected competent 
men as surgeons for the regiments and military depots, and by a 
re-examination by his special aids of recruits passed by imperfect 
examinations he caused the rejection of many with great advan- 
tage and economy to the Government. 

Quartermaster-General Van Vechten was a faithful, plodding offi- 
cial, but lacking in the power or initiative. 

General Welch, the ordnance officer, had been State Treasurer 
and a man of great social popularity. He resigned in 1862 to take 
a place with the rank of colonel on the staff of General Pope, com- 
manding the Army of the Potomac, and contracting malarial fever 
in the field, died after a short service. 

Judge-Advocate General Anthon came from a scholastic family 
and was a sound lawyer. His duties were confined to legal ques- 
tions and the operation of the new militia law, of which he was 
the author. His death at a comparatively early age cut short a 
career that would have been useful and honorable. 

Paymaster Bliss was a man of tireless activities in many direc- 
tions. Among other tasks he had supervision of the care of 14,000 
wounded soldiers who were quartered at the Park barracks while 
en route through the city in May, June and July in 1862, and sub- 
sequently was indefatigable in the payment of the State bounty. 
After the war he became well known in the city as a prominent 
figure in the management of his party and as United States district 
attorney. 

The New Year on January i, 1863, dissolved our military connec- 
tion, and we parted with mutual esteem. I am certain that the 
others felt the same pride that I did in having been an official part 
of a State administration so patriotic, pure and efficient. 



APPENDIX A; 



ALLOTMENT OF PART OF SOLDERS^ PAY. 



AT the very outset of the war it occurred to thoughtful people 
that the withdrawal from productive labor of a large part of 
its citizens for an uncertain period would breed grave conditions, 
which, if not successfully met, would bring great embarrassments, 
ever increasing as the war was prolonged. The citizens who enlisted 
were selected, both as to age and bodily condition, from the class 
whose productive capacity was in a physical sense the highest. 
In this withdrawal of so many wage-earners the first question to be 
solved was as to the assured support, during their absence, of those 
dependent on them, since the enforced assumption of this obliga- 
tion as a public charge would not only be a grievous addition to 
the burdens resting upon the people, but what would be worse, 
would generate a large pauper class, with all the demoralizing con- 
sequences and influences so noxious in older nations, and which 
we had fortunately so far escaped. There was also to be consid- 
ered the subjective effect of such a severance of family interests 
and obligations upon the soldiers themselves, separated from their 
homes, at great distances and for long periods, immersed in excite- 
ments and distractions and often without communication of any 
sort for many months. War exerts upon most of those engaged 

* See pages 54, 136. 



148 Annual Report of the State Historian. 

in it tendencies so vicious and depraving that society, in self- 
defence, can neglect no agency by which the evils may be prevented 
or mitigated. 

The pay of the private soldier, $13 a month, at first glance seems 
paltry, but when it is considered that, in addition, he receives food, 
clothing, quarters and medical attendance, there seems no reason 
why he should spend for his own needs more than $3 to $5 a 
month, and not allot the residue for the support of his dependents, 
or if free from that contingency, should not direct its deposit in a 
savings bank to accumulate as capital when he returns to the 
working world. These motives led to an inadequate act of Con- 
gress, passed July 22, 1861, during the short session called to meet 
the sudden exigencies and perils caused by the rebellion. So imper- 
fect were this law and the agencies for its execution, that it bore 
no good results. A more effective law was passed on December 
24, 1861, and under its provisions President Lincoln, four days 
later, appointed as commissioners for the State of New York three 
of its citizens who had been largely instrumental in the passage of 
the law. These were Theodore Roosevelt, father of President 
Roosevelt; William E. Dodge, Jr., and Theodore Bronson, all of 
New York city, and notable as foremost there in all good works, 
moral, social and political. Mr. Roosevelt was chairman of the 
commission, and in the brief survey here of the achievements of 
the members it may be premised that the law expressly declared 
that in the discharge of their functions under it they " shall 
receive no pay or emoluments whatever from the Treasury of the 
United States." Thus not only were their services purely gratui- 
tous, but they paid every cent of their expenses out of their own 
pockets. These public-spirited citizens immediately set about their 
task by visiting the Army of the Potomac, encamped in a quagmire 



War of the Rebellion Series. 149 

of deep, tenacious mud on the Virginia side of that river opposite 
Washington. During the months of January, February and March 
they beat up the quarters of 80 regiments in that army, and at Bal- 
timore, AnnapoHs, Fortress Monroe and Newport News. It was 
a very severe winter, and away from all the usual conveniences of 
civilization they were almost entirely dependent upon the higher 
officers for quarters, subsistence and transportation. Their method 
of solicitation was to request the officers to have the companies, or, 
if practicable, an entire regiment, drawn up in hollow square, when 
one of the commissioners would address the soldiers, explaining 
the law, appealing to them on behalf of their distant families, and 
disabusing their minds of prejudices arising from the defects of 
the earlier law or raised by interested parties. Of these latter were 
some of the paymasters and their clerks, who found their labor 
increased by the division of payments into money in hand and 
cheques for the allotted amounts. But the most effective opposi- 
tion came from the sutlers, who, seeing the serious diminution of 
their profits from the sales, at exorbitant prices, of wares mostly 
unnecessary or injurious, put up placards impudently warning the 
men that the law was an attempt of the Government to swindle 
them out of their wages. The commissioners were informed that 
officers were often partners with the sutlers, and shared in their 
profits, and that liquor was sold constantly in violation of law, 
often " hidden under all kinds of ingenious devices, disguised as 
tobacco, bread, etc.^ and even in some cases in imitation Bibles." 
It was my own observation that sutlers, as a class, exerted a very 
demoralizing influence. 

In April the commissioners visited the New York troops under 
General Hunter on the coasts of South Carolina, Georgia and Flor- 
ida, but with indifferent success, having been preceded by osten- 



150 Annual Report of the State Historian. 

sible agents of the New York common council, who, in the clumsy 
presentation of their own allotment system, prejudiced the men 
against any method. During the raising of the third levy — in the 
summer and fall of 1862 — the commissioners visited all the regi- 
ments in their respective camps throughout the State and secured 
a large allotment. It was during this service that I became per- 
sonally cognizant with the admirable work they were doing, which 
I was further brought in contact with a year later in Washington, 
Virginia and the camps south of Harrisburg, Pa. 

On November 15, 1862, the commission made a report to the 
President, from which some of the above information is abstracted, 
giving the allotments made up to that date by soldiers from this 
State as aggregating $5,341,890.21 per annum. This vast sum rep- 
resents, economically, socially and morally, more than can be con- 
ceived at this late day, when the abnormal and relaxing conditions 
of that long, exhausting war are forgotten or unknown. It was a 
work in the advantages of which the soldier, his family and his 
State participated, rendered by >three men, who, doubtful of their 
military ability and value, gave in lieu of service under arms such 
other good service as they could in an unselfish and devoted spirit. 
All the saviors of our country did not go into the martial arena; if 
they had there would have been no salvation. 

The efforts of the commissioners continued to the end of the war, 
but all the later recruiting was by individuals for the regiments 
in the field, or by drafting, or by purchase of men in the open mart 
to fill quotas, and it was difficult to reach these isolated cases, 
though in spite of obstacles many allotments were secured. 

The experience gained by Messrs. Roosevelt and Dodge in the 
operation of the allotment system drew their attention, towards the 
close of the war, to the disadvantages which the families of deceased 



War of the Rebellion Series. 151 

soldiers, as also the disabled soldiers themselves, suffered in the 
collection of back pay and pensions. The procedure in these claims 
being intricate and technical, the claimants were apt to become the 
prey of unscrupulous pension agents, who deducted large commis- 
sions and often, in their own interest, delayed collections, causing 
great hardship. In cooperation with other leading citizens of New 
York city they organized the " Protective War Claim Association," 
of which the venerable General Winfield Scott was president, with 
an office at 35 Chamibers street. The purpose of this organization 
was the collection of claims without any cost to the claimants, the 
giving of gratuitous advice to the discharged soldiers and sailors 
regarding bounties, pensions, etc., and, not least, in preventing the 
making of false claims against the Government — purposes of course 
very obnoxious to some parties. This good work was only closed 
when the pension and related business was monopolized by the pen- 
sion agents through their practical alliance, for mutual benefit, with 
the organized veterans, an alliance that has achieved stupendous 
results. 

Mr. Roosevelt died in February, 1878, and Mr. Bronson some time 
later, leaving Mr. Dodge the sole survivor of this trio of unselfish 
patriots. 



APPENDIX B,* ^ 



HEADQUARTERS, DEPOTS, STOREHOUSES, 
BARRACKS AND CAMPS. 



OF course the general headquarters were at Albany, where 
the Governor, adjutant-general and inspector-general had 
offices in the Capitol, where the Assembly library was given to the 
adjutant-general and two rooms built in the front of the spacious 
hall on the main floor were added to the offices of the Governor 
and adjutant-general. The inspector-general's office, when the 
Legislature was not in session, was in the ante-room and post-office 
of the Senate over the Executive Chamber. These rooms, which 
I occupied in 1861-62, had some hereditary associations, as my 
grandfather, James Burt, of Orange, had been in the Legislature 
for twenty years between 1797 and 1827. He voted in the Assem- 
bly on the bill to erect the Capitol, and was in the Senate ten years; 
my father was deputy clerk of that body for several years prior 
to 1829. Surgeon-General Vander Poel, for convenience, had his 
office in his residence on the northeast corner of Pearl and Steuben 
streets. The quartermaster-general had an office a part of the time 
in the Capitol and a part at the depot. General Arthur had his 
office in New York in the military storehouse, No. 51 Walker street, 
of which more anon. 
* See pages 18, 46, 49, 96. 



154 Annual Report of the State Historian. 

The three depots designated as the rendezvous for volunteers were 
as follows: 

At Albany, in the industrial school building, a large brick struc- 
ture in the southwest part of the city, to which many rough wooden 
additions were made. Brigadier- General John F, Rathbone, of 
Albany, was commandant. He was a prominent and public-spirited 
citizen of Albany, where he died in 1901 at an advanced age. His 
assistant adjutant-general was Charles Emory Smith, then just grad- 
uated from college, and since favoraibly known as editor of the Phila- 
delphia Press, Minister to Russia and Postmaster-General. 

The depot at New York was at brigade headquarters in the 
armory over the old market house on Grand and Centre streets. 
Brigadier-General Charles Yates was commandant. General Arthur 
had been a member of his staff. 

In the autumn of 1861 there were established branch depots at 
Binghamton, Boonville, Buffalo, Cherry Valley, Cortland, Deposit, 
Geneseo, Hancock, Kingston, Le Roy, Lyons, Malone, Ogdens- 
burg, Oswego, Plattsburgh, Potsdam, Rochester, Sackets Harbor, 
Syracuse and Troy. 

The three principal depots were used for the first levy, and these 
and the branch depots for the second levy. 

The depot at New York had from the first many places for ren- 
dezvous, among which were the Park barracks, the Battery bar- 
racks. No. 6:^2 Broadway and other buildings in the city used tem- 
porarily; Camps Scott, Washington, Arthur, Decker, Peissner and 
Quarantine, in the towns of Castleton and New Brighton, Staten 
Island; on which also were camps at New Dorp and Elm Park. 
In Brooklyn there were camps in the city park and East New York, 
one at Flatbush, and on the Sound at Rikers, South Brothers and 
Davids islands, at Fort Schuyler and Willets Point, and at Scars- 
dale, Westchester county. 



War of the Rebellion Series. 155 

The most interesting of the barracks and camps in the State was 
the structure built in New York city in April and May, 1861, on 
the truncated triangle forming the southern part of the City Hall 
park, now occupied in part by the post-office building and Mail 
street. It was known as the Park barracks, and was in constant 
use until its demolition after the war in 1865. It was, in a primitive 
way, a picturesque building of wood, and the fine elm trees on its 
site were carefully preserved, their great rugged trunks appearing 
inside the building as Druidical columns supporting its roof, while 
from without were seen the branches shooting high above the edi- 
fice, giving it a peculiarly sylvan aspect, and when in foliage pro- 
tecting it from the hot sun. 

In the interior were spacious apartments for offices, kitchens, 
messrooms and for sleeping bunks accommodating a thousand men 
or more. The main entrance was at the north end on Broadway. 
These barracks were not only used for recruiting purposes in the 
city, but were also a convenient shelter for regiments passing 
through, to and from the field, and this use was not confined to the 
regiments of this State, but extended to those of all the New 
England States. As to these latter, there were special organizations 
of citizens, natives of the respective States, who not only welcomed 
these transient regiments, but added the luxuries of the season, 
usually fruits but occasionally ice cream^ to the regular rations served 
in the messrooms. Colonel Frank Howe, who was military repre- 
sentative of Massachusetts, may be remembered by old city resi- 
dents as quite conspicuous on these occasions. He had a great 
penchant for exhibiting his tall and rather handsome person and 
having his " doings " prominently chronicled in the papers. 

Special welcome was given to the embrowned and tattered mem- 
bers of the shrunken regiments returning at the expiration of their 



156 Annual Report of the State Historian. , 

enlistment, the first of these being those of our first levy. Isolated 
soldiers on leave found a temporary asylum here, but in April, 1863, 
a spacious " home " for these was established by the State in two 
five-story warehouses, Nos. 50 and 52 Howard street, and the adjoin- 
ing building, No. 16 Mercer street, which were comfortably fitted 
with all the appliances of a hotel, and where soldiers, without regard 
to their State, obtained without expense lodging, meals and other 
conveniences, including special attention to the wounded and sick. 
This house remained open until the close of the war. 

The Park barracks are associated with many memories of the 
war times in the minds of all those who had a part in the State mil- 
itary establishment and of the thousands of veterans who were 
accommodated there, as also of old citizens who recall the many 
incidents connected with that quaint building. It is to be regretted 
that the city has no painting of the Park barracks as a memento 
of those exciting times, and also of the patriotic endeavors and 
public spirit of its citizens, and as a preservative of the scene where 
they gave welcome and God-speed to so many soldiers of this and 
other States. Yet why could we expect any such sentimental con- 
siderations by a city that subsequently relinquished this site to 
the United States for a paltry sum and the erection of an architectu- 
ral monstrosity on it, and so mutilating our municipal park from 
every point of view, and contracting a space not only valuable in 
a sanitary sense, but also as a part of the open area or common 
connected with our civil life and annals for two and a half centuries? 

The wooden barracks erected in the Battery park were of smaller 
dimensions and less importance, though very useful. 

In 1861 the bark " Kate Stamler," anchored in New York, was 
used as a rendezvous for recruits for the " marine artillery."'*' 

* See page 57. 



War of the Rebellion Series. 157 

At Plattsburgh were used the United States barracks on the Lake 
Champlain bluff, south of the town, which, having- accommodations 
for two companies only, were supplemented by temporary additions 
made by the State. 

The regimental camps for the third levy and the regiments, etc. 
(infantry when not otherwise specified), that were organized at them 
were as follows: 

Albany, One Hundred and Thirteenth Regiment — two inde- 
pendent companies; 

Auburn, One Hundred and Eleventh, One Hundred and Thirty- 
eighth and One Hundred and Sixtieth Regiments; 

Brooklyn, One Hundred and Thirty-ninth, One Hundred and 
Fifty-eighth and One Hundred and Fifty-ninth Regiments; 

Binghamton, One Hundred and Ninth and One Hundred and 
Thirty-seventh Regiments ; 

Buffalo, One Hundred and Sixteenth and One Hundred and 
Fifty-fifth Regiments and one battery of artillery; 

Delhi, One Hundred and Forty-fourth Regiment; 

Elmira, One Hundred and Seventh, One Hundred and Forty-first 
and One Hundred and Sixty-first Regiments; 

Fonda, One Hundred and Fifteenth and One Hundred and Fifty- 
third Regiments; 

Geneva, One Hundred and Twenty-sixth and One Hundred and 
Forty-eighth Regiments ; 

Goshen, One Hundred and Twenty-fourth Regiment; 

Hamilton, One Hundred and Fifty-seventh Regiment; 

Hudson, One Hundred and Twenty-eighth Regiment; 

Jamestown, One Hundred and Twelfth and One Hundred and 
Fifty-fourth Regiments; 

Kingston, One Hundred and Twentieth and One Hundred and 
Fifty-sixth Regiments; 



158 Annual Report of the State Historian. 

Lockport, One Hundred and Twenty-ninth and One Hundred and 
Fifty-first Regiments and four batteries of artillery; 

Mohawk, One Hundred and Twenty-first and One Hundred and 
Fifty-second Regiments ; 

Monticello, One Hundred and Forty-third Regiment; 

New York, One Hundred and Nineteenth, One Hundred and 
Twenty-seventh, One Hundred and Thirty-first, One Hundred and 
Thirty-second, One Hundred and Thirty-third, One Hundred 
and Forty-fifth, One Hundred and Sixty-second, One Hundred and 
Sixty-third, One Hundred and Sixty-fourth, One Hundred and Sev- 
entieth, One Hundred and Seventy-first and One Hundred and 
Seventy-third Regiments;* 

Norwich, One Hundred and Fourteenth Regiment; 

Ogdensburg, One Hundred and Sixth and One Hundred and 
Forty-second Regiments ; 

Oswego, One Hundred and Tenth and One Hundred and Forty- 
seventh Regiments and one battery of artillery; 

Plattsburgh, One Hundred and Eighteenth Regiment; 

Portage, One Hundred and Thirtieth and One Hundred and 
Thirty-sixth Regiments ; 

Poughkeepsie, One Hundred and Fiftieth Regiment; 

Rochester, One Hundred and Eighth and One Hundred and For- 
tieth Regiments and two batteries of artillery; 

Rome, One Hundred and Seventeenth and One Hundred and 
Forty-sixth Regiments ; 

Salem, One Hundred and Twenty-third Regiment; 

* While these regiments were finally organized in and around New York, 
their component parts should be credited to other localities for the most 
part. They were partially formed of companies raised elsewhere and con- 
solidated in New York, but it would be difficult to give the proper credits 
now. 



War of the Rebellion Series. 159 

Sackets Harbor, four battalions of artillery ; 

Stapleton, S. I., One Hundred and Seventy-fifth Regiment; 

Syracuse, One Hundred and Twenty-second and One Hundred 
and Forty-ninth Regiments; 

Troy, One Hundred and Twenty-fifth and One Hundred and 
Sixty-ninth Regiments; 

Yonkers, One Hundred and Thirty-fifth and One Hundred and 
Seventy-second regiments ; 

At most of these camps barracks, mess buildings, etc., were 
erected except where there were those that had been built or leased 
for the earlier levies. 

The military storehouse at Albany was in a rented warehouse on 
Broadway opposite the steamboat landing. Colonel Isaac Vander- 
pool was the military storekeeper. 

At the Elmira depot Brigadier-General Robert B. Van Valken- 
burgh (N. Y. Militia) was commandant, with headquarters in two 
storehouses on Baldwin street back of the (then) Brainerd House. 
The military storehouse was a part of the same buildings, under 
charge of Colonel C. C. B, Walker. 

Early in May, 1861, orders were received from Albany to prepare 
for the reception of ten companies of the first levy, but forty arrived 
almost simultaneously; a part of this unexpected muster was quar- 
tered in a building recently erected for a barrel factory and there- 
after used and known as Barracks No. i, and the remainder tem- 
porarily quartered in churches, etc., until rented lodgings could be 
procured. Commodious barracks were later built on the banks of 
the Chemung river, east of the city, and used for all the levies, and 
in 1863-64 were occupied by the Confederate prisoners collected at 
Elmira under the general supervision of Colonel Benjamin F. Tracy, 
One Hundred and Ninth Regiment, Volunteer Infantry. 



i6o Annual Report of the State Historian. 

General Van Valkenburgh's assistant adjutant-general was Cap- 
tain William Rumsey, who resigned in August, 1861, to take the 
adjutancy of the First Regiment New York Artillery, and has been 
a judge of the Supreme Court — 1881 to 1901. He was succeeded 
by Captain Ira Davenport, who was State Senator 1880-81 and 
State Comptroller 1882-83. General Van Valkenburgh was com- 
missioned colonel of the One Hundred and Seventh Regiment 
Volunteer Infantry in September, 1862, being then a member of 
Congress, as was also Alexander S. Diven, who was lieutenant- 
colonel of the same regiment and its colonel after October 21, 1862. 
General Van Valkenburgh served two terms in Congress and was 
United States minister to Japan 1866-70. Colonel Diven was assist- 
ant United States provost-marshal-general in 1863-64 in charge of 
the conscription in this State. 

Colonel Elliott F. Shepard became commandant of the Elmira 
depot in September, 1862. 

At New York General Arthur, in the early part of May, 1861, 
secured a new w^arehouse at 51 Walker street, which, with its novel 
iron front and four stories, was conspicuous in a block of old-time 
low buildings. The military stores were received here, issued to 
regiments in the vicinity and shipped to the other military stores. 
The building was spacious, occupying about all of the lot, and in 
the upper stories were offices for the departments of the quarter- 
master and inspector generals and the auditing boards. It was the 
center of vast activities in the exigent period when 60,000 recruits 
were fitted out in July and August, and was not abandoned until 
May I, 1865. 

The State ordnance department was administered in the new 
State arsenal on the northeast corner of Seventh avenue and Thirty- 
fifth street. It had recently replaced the old arsenal in Central 



War of the Rebellion Series. i6i 

park, facing Fifth avenue at Sixty-fourth street, since occupied by 
the park department and surrounded by the menagerie buildings. 
In the new arsenal were stored cannon, small arms and their accou- 
trements and a certain amount of cartridges. It was invested by 
the rioters in July, 1863, and became one of the principal points of 
concern in those perilous days, since the capture of its arms and 
ammunition would, under the grave condition of affairs, have made 
the mob invincible. 
II 



1 62 



Annual Report of the State Historian, 



GDlonels of New York Volanteer Regiments Pfomoted by the 
President to be Bfigadier-Generals of United States Volonteers. 



NAME. 



Michael Corcoran, 
Henry W. Slocum, 
Louis Blenker, 
Abraham Duryea, 
Daniel E. Sickles, 
Issac I. Stevens, 
Julius Stahel, 
Thomas A. Davies, 
Isaac F. Quinby, 
James H. Van Alen, 
Max Weber, 
George S. Greene, 
John Cochrane, 
Joseph B. Carr, 
Joseph J. Bartlett, 
Nelson Taylor, 
Edward Ferrero, 
Adolph Von Steinwehr, 
Calvin E. Pratt, 
Francis C. Barlow, 
Gouverneur K. Warren, 
J. H. Hobart Ward, 
Charles C. Dodge, 
Lewis C. Hunt, 
William Dwight, Jr. 
Wladimir Kryzanowski, 
James H. Ledlie, 
Daniel Ullman, 
Francis L. Vinton, 
Robert B. Potter, 
Charles K. Graham, 
William H. Morris, 
Gustavus A. De Russy, 
Samuel K. Zook, 
Alexander Shaler, 
Judson Kilpatrick, 
Alfred N. Duffie, 
Edward P. Chapin, 
Kenner Garrard, 
James C. Rice, 
Henry E. Davies, 
Regis De Trobriand, 
Nelson A. Miles, 
Emory Upton, 
Daniel D. Bidwell, 
Thomas W. Egan, 
Wm. H. Seward, Jr. 
Alfred Gibbs, 
N. Martin Curtis, 
Thomas C. Devin, 
John H. Ketcham, 
Patrick H. Jones, 
Joseph E. Hamblin, 
Henry A. Barnum, 
Charles H. Van Wyck, 
William B. Tibbitts, 
Morgan H. Chrysler, 



Colonel of 



69th Militia, 

27th Regiment Infantry, 

8th Regiment Infantry, 

5th Regiment Infantry, 

70th Regiment Infantry, 

7Qth Regiment Infantry, 

8th Regiment Infantry, 

i6th Regiment Infantry, 

13th Regiment Infantry. 

3d Regiment Cavalry, 

20th Regiment Infantry, 

60th Regiment Infantry, 

65th Regiment Infantry, 

2nd Regiment Infantry, 

27th Regiment Infantry, 

72d Regiment Infantry, 

Sist Regiment Infantry, 

29th Regiment Infantry, 

31st Regiment Infantry, 

6ist Regiment Infantry, 

5th Regiment Infantry, 

38th Regiment Infantry, 

ist Regiment Mounted Rifles, 

92d Regiment Infantry, 

70th Regiment Infantry, 

58th Regiment Infantry, 

3d Regiment Artillery, 

78th Regiment Infantry, 

43d Regiment Infantry, 

Sist Regiment Infantry, 

74th Regiment Infantry, 

6th Regiment Artillery, 

4th Regiment Artillery, 

57th Regiment Infantry, 

6Sth Regiment Infantry, 

2d Regiment Cavalry, 

(Major) 2d Cavalry, 

ii6th Regiment Infantry, 

146th Regiment Infantry, 

44th Regiment Infantry, 

2d Regiment Cavalry, 

38th Regiment Infantry, 

6ist Regiment Infantry, 

i2ist Regiment Infantry, 

49th Regiment Infantry. 

40th Regiment Infantry, 

gth Regiment Artillery, 

ist Regiment Dragoons, 

i42d Regiment Infantry, 

6th Regiment Cavalry, 

150th Regiment Infantry, 

154th Regiment Infantry, 

65th Regiment Infantry, 

149th Regiment Infantry, 

56th Regiment Infantry, 

2ist Regiment Cavalry, 

2d Veteran Cavalry, 



Date of Rank. 


July 


2I< 


186 1 


August 


Q 


i86r 


August 


Q 


1861 


August 


31 


1 861 


Sept. 


^. 


1861 


Sept. 


28, 


i86t 


Nov. 


12, 


1861 


March 


7i 


1862 


March 


I7i 


1862 


April 


IS, 


1862 


April 


28 


1862 


April 


28, 


1862 


July 


I7i 


1862 


August 


29, 


i86a 


Sept. 


4 


1862 


Sept. 


Q, 


1862 


Sept. 


10, 


1862 


Sept. 


12, 


1862 


Sept. 


13. 


1862 


Sept. 


iq, 


1862 


Sept. 


26, 


1862 


Oct. 


4' 


1862 


Nov. 


29, 


1862 


Nov. 


29, 


1862 


Nov. 


2Q. 


1862 


Nov. 


29, 


1862 


Dec. 


4< 


1862 


Jan. 


IS. 


i8f3 


March 


I3i 


1863 


March 


I^, 


1863 


March 


IS, 


1863 


April 
May 


2, 


1863 


23, 


1863 


May 


23, 


1863 


May 


26, 


1863 


June 


IS, 


1863 


June 


24, 


1863 


June 


27, 


1863 


July 


23, 


1863 


August 


17, 


1863 


Sept. 


16, 


1863 


Jan. 


5, 


1864 


May 


12, 


1864 


July 


4, 


1864 


August 


II, 


1864 


Sept. 


2, 


1864 


Oct. 


4, 


1864 


Dec. 


8, 


1864 


Jan. 


24, 


1865 


March 


IS, 


186s 


April 
May 


I, 


i86s 


Q, 


1865 


May 


IQ, 


1865 


May 


SI, 


186s 


Sept. 


27, 


i8bs 


Oct. 


28, 


i86s 


Nov. 


II, 


1865 



Notes. — Many of these brigadier-generals w^ere subsequently 
appointed major-generals of volunteers and some entered the Reg- 
ular Army. Three generals" were appointed from the Second Cav- 
alry and the Sixty-fifth Infantry, and two from each of the following 



War of the Rebellion Series. 163 

regiments: Fifth, Eighth, Twenty-seventh, Fifty-first, Sixty-first 
and Seventieth Infantry. 

General Slocum, a West Pointer, participated in all the battles of 
the East up to the fight at Gettysburg, where he commanded the 
right wing of the Army of the Potomac. Subsequently was trans- 
ferred to the western army, where he commanded the twentieth 
corps; the army of Georgia and the left wing of Sherman's army on 
its march to the sea through Carolina. For a detailed sketch of 
General Slocum and General Sickles see Second Annual Report of 
the State Historian, pages 29-34. General Slocum died nth of 
April, 1894. 

General Thomas A. Davies was a graduate of West Point of the 
class of 1829; was assigned to the First Infantry, but resigned in 
1 83 1 to practice civil engineering in the city of New York. At the 
outbreak of the war he was in business in that city and was assigned 
to the Sixteenth New York Volunteers as colonel. He was made 
brigadier-general March 7, 1862, and participated in the Mississippi 
campaign; from 1862 to June, 1865, was in command of departments 
in the West and Northwest. He died near Ogdensburg 19th of 
August, 1899. 

General John Cochrane was descended from revolutionary stock, 
his grandfather being surgeon-general of the Continental Army. 
John Cochrane was surveyor of the port of New York, 1853. He 
was a member of Congress, 1857-61, brigadier-general, 1864-65, and 
died the 7th of February, 1898. 

General Carr attained high distinction during the war for his mili- 
tary ability. He was Secretary of State, 1880-86, and died at Troy, 
N. Y., the 24th of February, 1895. 

General Bartlett was regarded as one of the best dressed ofificers 
in the Army of the Potomac; was minister to Sweden in 1867; sub- 



164 Annual Report of the State Historian. 

sequently commissioner of pensions; died at Baltimore the 14th of 
January, 1893. 

General Pratt was another officer very highly regarded in the vol- 
imteer service; he occupied a seat on the Supreme Court bench in 
Kings county from 1870 to his death, August 3, 1898. 

General Barlow, one of the youngest generals in the army, and 
severely wounded in the battles of Antietam and Gettysburg, was 
Secretary of State, 1866-67, and Attorney-General, 1872-73; died 
nth of January, 1896. 

General Warren, a West Point graduate, held important com- 
mands during the war; for a detailed sketch of General Warren see 
Second Annual Report of the State Historian, pages 38-45. 

General Ward was State commissary-general, 1856-60. 

General Dodge was a son of William E. Dodge, the well known 
merchant and philanthropist of New York city; after the war prac- 
ticed his profession of the law in the western part of New York and 
was promoted to the bench and established a reputation of a great 
jurist. 

General Ullman was the nominee of the " Know-Nothing " party 
for Governor in 1854. 

General Vinton was a graduate of West Point and member of a ■ 
well known military family, his father having been killed in the Mex- 
ican war. 

General Potter was a son of Bishop Alonzo Potter of Pennsylvania 
and brother of Bishop Henry C. Potter of New York. 

General Graham was surveyor of the port of New York, 1878-83, 
and naval officer of same, 1883-85; died the 15th of April, 1889. 

General Morris was a West Point graduate and son of George P. 
Morris, a writer of some repute and author of " Woodman, Spare 
that Tree ", etc. See page 104 for biography. 



War of the Rebellion Series. 165 

General Kilpatrick became one of the leading cavalry generals of 
the war and subsequently minister resident to Chili; died at Val- 
paraiso the 4th of December, 1881. 

General George S. Greene was born in Rhode Island, graduated 
No. 2 in the West Point class of 1823. He was a distinguished 
officer during the War of the Rebellion. For several years before 
his death he was the oldest surviving graduate of the West Point 
academy. He died at Morristown, N. J., January 28, 1899. For a 
detailed sketch of General Greene's life, see Second Annual Report 
of the State Historian, pages 53-56. 

General Charles H. Van Wyck, a native of Poughkeepsie, entered 
the Union Army as colonel of the Tenth Legion of the Fifty-sixth 
N. Y. Volunteers and commanded it throughout the war. He was 
elected to the Thirty-sixth, Thirty-seventh, Fortieth and Forty-first 
Congress from the Orange county district; removed to Nebraska 
and subsequently served that State in the United States Senate. 

General H. E. Davies, son of Judge H. E. Davies, Court of 
Appeals. 

General Miles has gradually risen to his present position of lieu- 
tenant-general U. S. A. 

General Upton was a graduate of West Point and published imme- 
diately after the war a treatise on military tactics which took the 
place of the previous " Hardee Tactics " ; while in command of the 
Presidio at San Francisco his mind became afTected, and during a 
temporary aberration he took his life on March 4th, 1881. 

General Seward is son of the great New York statesman, William 
H. Seward, and is a prominent banker of Auburn, N. Y. 

General N. Martin Curtis, member of Congress for several terms ; 

* 

member of Assembly several terms; resident of Ogdensburg, N. Y. 
General Jones, postmaster New York city, 1869-73; register of 
New York city, 1868-69, 1874-77. 



i66 Annual Report of the State Historian. 

General Barnum, inspector of prisons, 1866-69; member of 
Assembly, 1885; died in New York city 29th January, 1892. 

General John Henry Ketcham was born at Dover, N. Y., Decem- 
ber 21, 1832; member of Assembly in 1856, 1857; State Senator, 
i860, 1861 ; member of the war committee for his senatorial district; 
resigned from the army March, 1865, to take a seat in Congress; 
was elected to the Thirty-ninth, Fortieth, Forty-first, Forty-second, 
Forty-fifth, Forty-sixth, Forty-seventh, Forty-eighth, Forty-ninth, 
Fiftieth, Fifty-first, Fifty-second, Fifty-fifth, Fifty-sixth and Fifty- 
seventh Congresses; received the title of major general by brevet. 

The general ofBcers from this State who were killed in action or 
died while in the service were: 

General Isaac I. Stevens, killed in action at Chantilly Septem- 
ber I, 1862; 

General Edwin V. Sumner, died at Syracuse March 21, 1863; 

General Chapin, killed in action at Port Hudson May 27, 1863; 

General Samuel K. Zook, killed in action at Gettysburg July 2, 
1863; 

General Michael Corcoran, died December 22, 1863; 

General James C. Rice, killed in action in the Wilderness May 10, 
1864; 

General James S. Wadsworth, died of wounds received in the bat- 
tle of the Wilderness May 8, 1864; 

General David A. Russell, killed in action at the battle of Opequon 
September 19, 1864; 

General Bidwell, killed at the battle of Cedar Creek October 
19, 1864. 



APPENDIX C* 



THE DEFENSES OF NEW YORK. 



THE war with Spain, which was officially declared April 21, 1898, 
threwthis country forward ten years in the matter of strength- 
ening coast defenses. Up to the time of the sinking of the Maine, 
Congress had displayed not only a most parsimonious but a most in- 
different policy regarding our national defenses. The importance of 
providing suitable armament and of adequate forces for the protec- 
tion of our great seaport towns was overlooked and disregarded to 
a degree that was next door to criminal. Army and naval experts 
for years had declared in interviews, in the public press, in maga- 
zines and in official reports that the next war would fall upon us 
suddenly and would be decided before we were in a state of pre- 
paredness. Predictions were frequently heard from coolheaded and 
able generals that a declaration of war would be followed immedi- 
ately by the appearance of a hostile fleet in the harbors of New York, 
Boston, Washington or San Francisco. Military students and 
observers were keenly alive to the appalling dangers that threatened 
our country, for it was a recognized fact that, unlike all previous 
wars where troops could be precipitately thrown together and mobil- 
ized while their equipment, guns and ammunition were being manu- 
factured for them, years of preparation were necessary in the con- 

* See page 88. 



i68 Annual Report of the State Historian. 

struction of modern ammunition, modern ordnance and the 
instruction necessary for the soldier to handle the implements of 
warfare as conducted to-day. 

As has been usual at every crisis in the history of this country, 
Congress displayed its hysterical spasm of patriotism and promptly 
voted an emergency fund of fifty million of dollars to be used by the 
President in pitching the country into a state of defense by land and 
sea. 

Under the distribution of this fund, the dififerent departments of 
the army and navy entrusted with the severe responsibilities so sud- 
denly thrust upon them worked with an energy and accomplished 
results in a short space of time that aroused the admiration of the 
entire country. Not only was New York harbor speedily converted 
into a fortress that was almost impregnable, but the work of develop- 
ment has progressed until to-day it could successfully withstand 
an assault from any one of the great European powers. The works 
at Sandy Hook, now called Fort Hancock, at the Narrows, at the 
eastern extremity of Long Island, at Throgs Neck and Willets 
Point, are mounted with the heaviest and most effective siege guns 
manufactured, together with batteries of 12-inch mortars and sec- 
ondary batteries of rapid-fire guns. Tlie heaviest caliber guns are 
mounted on disappearing gun carriages, and are invisible, except 
for the few seconds' exposure in firing, from a vessel approaching 
the coast. To-day New York city is in better shape to meet an 
armed host from the sea or by land than at any time in the history 
of the country. The work is still progressing. 

STATE HISTORIAN. 



INDEX* 



A. PAGE 

Absenteeism 90 

Accounts: 

auditor of 25 

adjustment of SO 

audited in inspector general's office 61 

for supplies, settlement of I44 

Adjutant general's headquarters 16 

Agnew, Dr. Cornelius, mentioned 3 

Albany, troops in 24 

Allen, William H., colonel 138 

Allotment of part of privates' pay 53, 136, I47~i5i 

Amsberg, George von, colonel 47 

Anthon, William Henry, judge advocate general 14 

drafts the National Guard law^ 80 

discusses it before legislative committees 81 

attempts to enforce compulsory service 119 

in charge of draft in New York and Kings counties 123, 124 

characteristics 14^ 

mentioned I43 

Antietam, Md., battle of 112, 130 

Appropriation of funds for the war • -82, 134 

Arden, Thomas B., colonel, succeeds Edmund Schriver as aide-de-camp, 

sketch of his life 55 

assistant paymaster general 107 

Arms: 

difficulty in obtaining 21, 82 

purchased 22, 83 

Arthur, Chester Alan, engineer-in-chief 14, 18, 20, 55, 72 

becomes inspector general 78^0 

quartermaster general 9^ 

embarrassed by United States officers to fill requisitions 102 



I/O Index. 

PAGE 

Arthur, Chester Alan, his overwhelming duties 113 

his administrative abilities 145, 160 

mentioned 139, 142, 143, 153, 154 

Artillery: 

in 1861 II, 45 

attempts to raise 23 

remanded to State authority 48 

in 1862 60, 84 

in October, 1862 117, 126 

in December, 1862 127 

turned over to General Banks 131 

infantry regiments converted into 132 

raised after December, 1S62 133 

in 1861 and 1862 133 

Auditing board, final report 143 

Auditor of accounts 2'5 

Augur, Christopher C, general , 28 

B. 

Bailey, Guilford R., colonel of the Second Regiment of Artillery, killed 

at Fair Oaks, Va 59 

Baker, Edv/ard Dickenson, killed at Balls Blufif, Va., sketch of his 

life 49, 63. 64 

Balls Blufif, Va., engagement at 49, 63 

Banks, Nathaniel P., Union general 89 

defeated at Cedar Mountain, Va 106 

relieves General Butler at New Orleans 131 

Barlow, Francis Channing, brigadier general 162, 164 

Barnard, John G., United States engineers 70 

Barnum, Henry A., brigadier general 162, 166 

Barracks 103, 153-161 

Bartlett, Joseph J., brigadier general 162, 163. 164 

Beadle, Tracy, member of assembly 77 

Beaufort, S. C, capture of 68 

Beauregard, Pierre G. T., confederate general, massing his forces a few 

miles west of Washington, D. C 43 



Index. 171 

PAGE 

Belmont, Mo., battle at (>1 

Bendix, John E., colonel, his command, the Seventh New York, fires 

into the Third New York at Big Bethel, Va id 

Benedict, Charles L., United States district judge ^^ 

Benton, Nathaniel S., canal auditor ^(i 

Betge, Robert J., colonel 48 

Bidwell, Daniel D., brigadier general 162 

killed at the battle of Cedar Creek, Va 166 

Big Bethel, Va.: 

disaster at 36 

force engaged at 45 

Black Horse Cavalry 59 

Blair, Francis Preston, union soldier 48 

Blankets: 

difficulty in obtaining 21 

requisition for 96 

Blenker, Louis, colonel and brigadier general 57, 65, 162 

Bliss, George, assistant adjutant general 64 

appointed paymaster general, characteristics 107, 146 

his endurance 109 

Bouchard, Antoine, mentioned 106 

Bounties 54, 97, 107, no, 118, 126, 134, 138 

" Bowery Boys " 138 

Bradford, Samuel D., aide-de-camp 15 

Bradley, John, colonel. State agent at Washington, D. C 98, 99 

Bragg, Braxton, confederate general, wins successes in the west 132 

Brigadier generals: 

depots under command of 18 

appointment Z2, 39, 46 

continued in command 49 

assistants 49 

list of 162 

Bronson, Theodore, mentioned 148, 151 

Brooklyn, riot in 116 

Buckingham, Charles, mentioned 20 



172 Index. 

PAGE 

Buckner, Simon Bolivar, confederate general, proposes to surrender 

Fort Donelson, Tenn., to General Grant 85 

Bull Run, Va. : 

first battle of 43 

force engaged at 45 

second battle no, 1 1 1 

Bullet machine 22 

Burnham, Frederick G., assistant paymaster general 107 

Burnside, Ambrose E., general, his disaster at Fredericksburg, Va 28 

expedition to Roanoke Island, N. C 92 

assumes command of the Army of the Potomac 129, 132 

Burt, James, mentioned 153 

Burt, Silas W., urges Governor Morgan to prepare history of his second 

administration 3 

papers lost by fire 3 

appointed auditor of military accounts 25 

appointed assistant inspector general 81 

assigned to inspect regimental camps, his duties 99-110 

Busteed, Richard, brigadier general 138-139 

Butler, Benjamin F., major general in command at Newport News, Va. 36 

captures Forts Hatteras and Clark, N. C 62 

expedition to Ship Island, Miss 92 

" contraband of war " 116 

relieved at New Orleans by General Banks 131 

mentioned 138 

c. 

Cameron, James Donald, mentioned 14 

Cameron, Simon, secretary of war, sketch of life I3~i4 

controversy with state authorities 27, 28, 35 

requests the states to withdraw their purchasing agent from Europe. 83 

Campbell, Duncan, colonel 16, 123 

Campbell, Robert, lieutenant governor, mentioned 14 

despatched to Washington 35 

Camps 153-161 

inspection 98, 106 



Index. 173 

PAGE 

Camps near Albany 24 

Canals, enlargement of 78 

Carr, Joseph B., brigadier general 162-163 

Carricks Ford, W. Va., engagement at 42 

Cavalry : 

in 1861 I r 

attempts to raise 23 

remanded to state authority 48 

hesitation in accepting 59 

nine regiments included in second levy 59 

in 1862 84 

December, 1862 127 

regiments raised after December 31, 1862 133 

in j86i and 1862 I33 

Cawee, George R., adjutant 109 

Cedar Mountain, Va., battle of 106 

Chapin, Edward P., brigadier general 162 

killed in action at Port Hudson, La 166 

Chaplains 38 

Chartres, due de, mentioned 69 

Chickahominy, Va., losses on 90 

Chrysler, Morgan H., brigadier general 162 

Church, Walter S., colonel 115 

Clarke, Henry F 28 

Cochrane, John, brigadier general 162, 163 

Cogswell, Mason F., Dr., examining surgeon 135 

Cogswell, Milton, colonel 63 

Cold Harbor, Va 132 

Cooper, Samuel, adjutant general, C. S. A I7 

Copperheads 26, 33, 115, 116-117 

Corcoran, Michael, colonel, captured at Bull Run, Va 134 

brigadier general 162 

date of death 166 

Cornell, Ezra, member of assembly 77 

Cornwallis, Lord, mentioned 88 

Coster, Charles R., colonel 102 



174 Index. 

PAGE 

Cowles, David S., colonel 99 

killed in action at Port Hudson, La 105 

Crandell, Levi, lieutenant colonel loi 

Cromwell, James, major, killed at Gettysburg 103 

Curtin, Andrew Gregg, mentioned, governor of Pennsylvania 27 

Curtis, N. Martin, brigadier general 162, 164 

D. 

Danforth, George E., brigadier general, mentioned 102 

Davenport, Ira, captain 160 

Davies, Henry E., judge of the Court of Appeals, mentioned 164 

Davies, Henry E., Jr., brigadier general 162, 164 

Davies, Thomas A., brigadier general 162, 163 

Davis, Jefferson, president of the confederacy, mentioned.. 112 

Defenses of New York city and state 70-75, 167-168 

Delafield, Richard, United States Engineers 23, 72 

supervises the contracts for and the construction of field guns for 

the state 83 

Dennison, William, governor of Ohio 27 

Denniston, Robert, comptroller, mentioned 6 

Dent, Frederick T., general 28 

Depew, Chauncey M., member of assembly T] 

D'Epineuil, Lionel J., colonel 47~48, 58 

Depots 18, 153-161 

De Russy, Gustavus A., brigadier general 162 

Deshon, George, mentioned 28 

Devin, Thomas C, brigadier general 162 

Dickinson, Daniel S., elected attorney general 67, 76 

Diven, Alexander S., colonel 160 

Dix, John Adams, appointed major general 32 

appointment repudiated by the national government z% 2i^ 

appointed major general of volunteers by the President 38 

Dodge, Charles C, brigadier general ■ 162, 164 

Dodge, William E., mentioned 164 

Dodge, William E., Jr., mentioned 148, 150, 151 

Donelson, Fort, Tenn., mentioned 85, 92 



Index. 175 

PAGE 

Dorsheimer, Philip, state treasurer, mentioned 14, 21 

visits New York regiments in the defenses at Washington 42 

refuses to surrender his office to his successor 75~76 

Douglas, Stephen A., mentioned 67 

Draft, contemplated ri8r-i26 

Drewrys Bluff, Va., repulse of fleet at 89 

Duffie, Alfred N., brigadier general 162 

Dupont, Samuel Francis, commodore in command of Hilton Head, 

S. C, expedition 49, 68 

Duryea, Abraham, brigadier general 162 

D'Utassy, Frederick George, colonel 47 

D wight, William, Jr., brigadier general 162: 

E. 

Egan, Thomas W., brigadier general 162 

Election: 

of 1861 66-67 

of 1862 127 

Ellis, A. Van Horn, colonel gg 

killed at Gettysburg, Pa 103 

Ellsworth, Elmer E., colonel, mentioned 7 

in command of Fire Zouaves 29 

his death at Alexandria, Va 35~36 

the " Ellsworth Avengers " 58 

Emancipation proclamation 114 

Engineers: 

regiments of 60 

in 1862 84 

in 1861 and 1862 133 

Enlistment, term of 15, 27, 30 

Ensign, use of term 15, 7,7 

Epineuil, Lionel J. d', colonel 47, 48, 58 

F. 
Fair Oaks, Va., battle at 89 

Farragut, David Glasgow, Union naval officer, expedition to Ship Island 92 

Ferrero, Edward, brigadier general 162 



i7^> Index. 

PAGE 

" Fire Zouaves " 29, 35 

Floyd, John B., dismantles northern arsenals while secretary of war 21 

Fort Clark, N. C 62 

Fort Donelson, Tenn 85, 92 

Fort Hatteras, N. C 62 

Fort Henry, Tenn 85, 92 

Fort Jackson, La 92 

Fort St. Philip, La 92 

Franchot, Richard, colonel 105 

Franklin, William B., major general, sketch of life 28-29 

Fredericksburg, Va., battle of 132 

Free states, unprepared condition ' 9 

Fremont, John Charles, Union general 89 

Fry, James B., United States provost marshal general 141 

G. 

Garrard, Kenner, brigadier general 162 

General orders: 
State — 

No. 13, providing for the details of organization for the seven- 
teen regiments under President Lincoln's proclamation. 11, 12, 15 
No. 41, organizing the first division of New York state volun- 
teers 32, 33 

No. 62, providing for inspection of the camps 98 

No. 78, for a regimental organization of ten companies each to 
conform with United States General Orders No. 15 for the 

regular army 45, 46, 53, 56 

United States — 

No. 15, for a regimental organization of ten companies 45, 46 

United States, No. 31, relative to the organization of volunteers. 92 
United States, No. 47, relative to the examination of persons 

aspiring for commissions 56 

United States, No. 51, disbarring a person from being mustered 

in as an officer who has once resigned 56 

United States, No. 52, prescribing the details of enlistment 94 



Index. 177 

General orders — (Continued). 

United States — (Continued). page 

United States, No. 58, to establish camps of rendezvous and in- 
struction for volunteers near New York and Elmira under 

regular army officers 49 

United States, Nos. 60 and 61, to crush the abuse of absenteeism. 90 
United States, No. 92, creating the military department of New 
York under the command of Governor Morgan, who was 
commissioned major general of volunteers by President Lin- 
coln 64 

United States, No. 99, for the draft of 300,000 nine months 
militiamen to be conducted under orders of the governors of 

the several states 102, 121, 122 

United States, No. 99, McClellan's congratulatory order 67, 68 

United States, No. 105, that no more regiments, batteries or in- 
dependent companies were to be raised by the states except 

upon special requisition 84, 11 1 

United States, No. 113, relative to the organization of volun- 
teers 92 

Gibbs, Alfred, brigadier general 162 

Gilsa, Leopold von, colonel 47 

Goldsborough, Louis M., commodore in command of the naval expedi- 
tion to Forts Hatteras and Clark, N. C 62 

expedition to Roanoke Island 92 

Governor's staff 11, 14. 55 

Governors, convention of ii7 

Graham, Charles K., brigadier general 162, 164 

Grant, Ulysses Simpson 28, 29 

wins battle of Belmont, Mo 67 

his reply to General Buckner's proposal to surrender Fort Donelson. 85 

losses in the Wilderness ^2~ 

Gray, John, mentioned 20 

Gray, Thomas S., member of assembly 77 

Greble, John T., lieutenant United States Army, killed at Big Bethel, 

Va 36 

sketch of his life 36^-3? 

Greeley, Horace, mentioned 5 



178 Index. 

PAGE 

" Greenbacks " 108 

Greene, George S., brigadier general 162 

oldest surviving West Point graduate 165 

Grisvi^old, John A., colonel loi 

H. 

Halleck, Henry Wager, major general, orders heavy artillery regiments 

to the front 132 

Hamilton, Charles S., general 28 

Hamblin, Joseph E., brigadier general 162 

Hardie, James A., general 28 

Harrisons Landing, Va., retreat to 93 

Haswell, William E., mentioned 24 

Head, Edmund Walker, governor general of Canada 22 

Headquarters 153 

Health, of soldiers 136 

Hillhouse, Thomas, adjutant general 50, 61, 102 

recommends a militia system similar to that of Germany 119 

characteristics 145 

Hilton Head, S. C, capture of forts at 49 

Hodges, Henry C, colonel, assigned to equip volunteer organizations, 

sketch of his life 55 

quartermaster on General Governor Morgan's staff 96 

Horton, Thomas R., adjutant 109 

Howard, William A., colonel of " Marine Artillery " 57, 58 

Howe, Frank, colonel, military representative from Massachusetts 155 

Hulburd, Calvin T., member of congress TJ 

Hunt, Lewis C, brigadier general 162 

Hunt, Wilson G., mentioned 20 

Hunter, David, Union general, mentioned 149 

L 

Inlantry: 

in 1861 10 

first levy 11 

regiments remanded to state authority 47 



Index. 179 

Infantry— (Continued). page 

in 1862 84 

call for 300,000 additional volunteers 93 

regiments in October, 1862 ii7> 126 

regiments in December, 1862 127 

turned over to General Banks 131 

regiments converted into heavy artillery regiments 131, 132 

in 1861 and 1862 I33 

regiments raised after December 31, 1862 i33 

Ingalls, Rufus, general 28 

Inspection of camps 98, 106 

Inspector general, appointment of assistant. 81 

J. 

Jackson, Claiborne F., governor of Missouri 48 

Jackson, James T., shoots and kills Colonel Ellsworth at the Marshall 

House, Alexandria, Va 35~36 

Jackson, Thomas Jonathan (Stonewall), confederate general, mentioned. 89 

defeats Banks at Cedar Mountain, Va 106 

Jackson, William A., inspector general 14 

appointed colonel Eighteenth New York Volunteer Infantry 26 

Johnson, Andrew, mentioned ^7, I39 

Jones, David R. Floyd, secretary of state 14 

nominated for lieutenant governor 127 

elected 128 

Jones, Patrick Henry, brigadier general 162, 165 

K. 

Kearny, " Phil," general, killed at Chantilly, Va no 

Ketcham, John Henry, brigadier general 162, 166 

Kilpatrick, Judson, general of volunteers 60 

brigadier general 162, 164 

King, John A., governor, mentioned 146 

Kitching, J. Howard, lieutenant colonel and colonel, dies of wounds 

received in action (at Cedar Creek, Va., October 19, 1864) 104 

Knowlton, Thomas, lieutenant colonel, mentioned 48 



i8o Index. 

PAGE 

Kozlay, Eugene A., colonel 47 

Kryzanowski, Wladimir, colonel 47 

brigadier general 162 

L. 

Ladue, Albert, sheriff 106 

Laws of the state: 

equipment of volunteer militia 11, 14 

pay of volunteers, bounties 54 

army ration 54 

new militia law 80, 119 

Ledlie, James H., brigadier general 162 

Lee, Robert Edward, confederate general, mentioned. .. .64, 85 112, 130, 131 

Legislature: 

of 1861 II 

of 1862 76 

exceptional character 76-77 

Lewis, William B., state treasurer, succeeds Philip Dorsheimer 75, 76 

Lexington, Mo., surrender of 48, 62 

Lincoln, Abraham, President, calls into service 75,000 militia 11 

makes an immediate call for volunteers after Bull Run 45 

orders a draft of 300,000 militia 102 

issues emancipation proclamation 114 

mentioned 14, in, 122, 129, 130, 139, 148 

Linsly, John H., military secretary IS 

appointed aide-de-camp 64 

Lynch, James, captain, elected sheriff of New York 44 

Lyon, Nathaniel, his death at the battle of Wilsons Creek, Mo., sketch 

of his life 48, 62 

M. 

McClellan, George Brinton, major general in command of Ohio troops. 27 

alleged discussion of his friends 28 

successes in Virginia 42 

in command of the Army of the Potomac 62 

his characteristics 65, 66, 130 



Index. i8i 

PAGE 

McClellan, George Brinton, issues a congratulatory order 67 

drilling his troops 84 

relieved from command 86 

reappointed to the command of the Army of the Potomac 112 

mentioned 68, 85, 88, 106, 129, 131, 133 

McCulloch, Ben., confederate general, mentioned 48 

McDougall, Archibald L., colonel, dies of wounds received in action near 

Dallas, Ga loi 

mentioned 107 

McDowell, Irvin, major general of volunteers at Bull Run 39 

concentrates troops about Washington, D. C 42 

disciplining his troops and his defeat at Bull Run 43 

an unjust charge exploded 65 

mentioned 89 

Magruder, John Bankhead, commands confederate forces at Big Bethel. 36 
Major generals: 

appointed by governor 31 

appointment 32, 35> 38 

Malvern Hill, Va., battle at 89 

Marcy, Randolph B., general of volunteers, mentioned 68 

" Marine Artillery " 57 

Mason, James M., confederate agent to England 17, 69, 74 

Mass meeting in Union Square, New York city 12 

Meade, George Gordon, major general, United States Army, mentioned. 17 

Merrimac, fears of attack from 133 

Merrimac and Monitor, battle of 87 

Miles, Nelson A., brigadier general 162, 164 

Military Department of New York, created 64 

Military establishment, clashing with 51 

Military supplies 20, 38 

Militia: 

first levy 9~40 

number in free states in 1861 9 

number in New York in 1S61 9 

inefficient in 1861 9 



i82 Index. 

Militia — (Continued). page 

authority to enroll, muster and discharge troops 14, 41 45, 95 

organization 15, 23 

election of officers 15, 34 

term of enlistment 15, 27, 30 

transportation 23 

complement of 30,000 troops organized 26 

instructed in drill and tactics 27, 50 

jurisdiction of general and state governments 28, 33. 47 

appointment of officers 31, 46 

resignations of ofificers 31, 56 

ofTficers inefficient 32 

enlistment of first regiments 35 

second levy 41-86 

volunteer regiments, after Bull Run disaster 45 

organization of additional regiments 45 

payment of expenses 50, 52, 81, 107-109, 134 

regiments of foreigners 47, 53, 57 

pay of officers S3 

pay of orivates 53 

allotment of privates' pay 53, 136, 147, 151 

stimulating enlistment 54 

discharges of enlisted men for disability 56 

discharge of minors 56 

character of second levy 56. 57 

number on April i, 1862 61 

law of April 25, 1862 80, 119 

expenditures controlled by the United States 81 

number on March 31, 1862 84 

third levy 87, 146 

orders for enrollment of all persons liable to militia duty 91 

call for 300,000 volunteers 93. 102 

new plan of recruitment 93 

rapidity of enlistments 98. 102 

in service October, 1862 118 

contemplated draft 1 18-126 



Index. 183 

Militia — (Continued). page 

slackness of recruiting in the great cities 137 

character of regiments 138-139 

total number of men sent to the field 140 

protest against injustice to true veteran soldiers 142 

consolidating incomplete companies and regiments 143 

Morgan, Edwin D., governor of New York, history of second adminis- 
tration urged 3 

his death 3 

characteristics 24-25, 144 

urges organization of 30,000 troops 26 

issues proclamation for 25,000 volunteers 45 

requests that the West Point cadets be assigned as military instruc- 
tors to volunteer regiments 50 

issues a vigorous proclamation 55 

appointed major general of volunteers by the President 64 

his daily military council 90 

nineteen governors of loyal states call upon the President for addi- 
tional reinforcements 93 

his proclamation of July 2, 1862 94 

his bounty proclamation 98 

declines to attend convocation of governors at Altoona 117 

issues a new proclamation abolishing bounties for recruits for regi- 
ments in the field 118 

turns his trust over to Horatio Seymour, declines pay for services as 

major general 132 

total number of men sent to the front under his administration 140 

mentioned. .6, 7, 11, 13, 14, 15, 17, 22, 27, 47, 55, 95, 97, 102, 103, 106, 107 

140, 144, 145 

Morgan, Edwin D., Jr., aide-de-camp 15, 17 

Morris, George P., mentioned 164 

Morris, Lewis O., colonel Seventh New York Heavy Artillery, killed 

before Cold Harbor, Va 100, 132 

Morris, William H., colonel, sketch of his life 104 

brigadier general 162 

Morton, Oliver P., governor of Indiana 27 



184 Index. 

PAGE 

Mulligan, Richard, colonel, mentioned 48, 62 

Murfreesboro, Tenn., battle of 132 

Myer, Aaron B., major, dies of wounds received in the Wilderness, Va. loi 

Myers, Charles G., attorney general, mentioned 14, 21 

visits New York regiments in the defenses of Washington, D. C. . . . 42 

N. 

National Guard 80, 91, 119 

National Guard law 80, 119 

Nelson, William, general, wins fight at Pikeville, Ky 6^ 

New Orleans, La., capture of 92 

New York city, regiments from 12 

defenses of 70, 75, 167-168 

riot in 116 

Newspapers, during Civil War 113-114 

Norfolk, Va., evacuation by rebels 89 

Norton, Franklin, lieutenant colonel, killed in action at Chancellorsville, 
Va loi 

O. 

Officers: 

appointment of IS, 31, 34 46 

resignations of 31, 56 

inefficiency 32 

state examinations 56 

Opdyke, George, mentioned 20 

P. 

Palmerston, Lord, the British premier 22 

Pamlico Sound, N. C, occupation on 92 

Paris, Compte de, mentioned 69 

Parmenter, F. W., accused as a traitor 22, 23 

Parrott field pieces 23, 83 

Patrick, Marsena, general, mentioned 6, 7, 24, no 

characteristics 25 

appointed inspector general of state troops 26 



Index. 185 

PAGE 

Patrick, Marsena, audits accounts 41 

■ applies for duty in the field 68 

disagreement with Governor Morgan T] 

becomes provost marshal general of the armies of the Potomac and 

the James 78 

Paulding, Edmund E., major, and paymaster 109 

Paymasters 38 

Peck, John J., Union general 28, 104 

Peissner. Elias, professor and colonel, killed in action at Chancellors- 

ville, Va loi 

Peninsula campaign 88 

Phelps, Royal, member of assembly TJ 

Phillips Island, capture of forts at 49 

Pickett, George E., confederate general, mentioned 39 

Pikeville, Ky., success of General Nelson at • 67 

Pittsburg Landing, Tenn., battle of 92 

Pope, John, major general, in command of the Army of the Potomac. 106 

his defeat at Second Bull Run no 

relinquishes command no, 112 

mentioned 133, 146 

Port Royal, S. C. : 

base of operations at 49 

reduction of forts at 67 

Porter, Peter A., member of assembly "]-/ 

colonel of the Eighth New York Artillery; killed at Cold Harbor, 

Va 132 

Porter, Peter B., secretary of war, mentioned "7 

Post, A., mentioned 99 

Potomac, passage of, by Lee 131 

Potter, Alonzo, bishop of Pennsylvania, mentioned 164 

Potter, Henry C., bishop of New York, mentioned 164 

Potter, Joseph H.. general 28 

Potter, Robert B., brigadier general 162, 164 

Pratt, Calvin E., brigadier general 162, 164 

Premium, on certain number of recruits presented and passed 54 



i86 Index. 

PAGE 

Price, Edward Livingston, colonel 139 

Price, Sterling, confederate general 48, 62 

Pringle, Benjamin, member of assembly "JJ 

Proclamation, of Governor Morgan, making call for seventeen regi- 
ments II 

calling for volunteers 45 

for stimulating enlistments 55 

on need of reinforcing the armies 94 

on desirability of a uniform bounty 98 

on state bounties no 

Proclamation, of President Lincoln, calling into service 75,000 militia... 11 

for volunteers, after Bull Run disaster 45 

calling for 300,000 additional volunteers 93, in 

declaring the emancipation of all slaves 114 

Pruyn, Charles E., adjutant and major, killed in action before Petersburg 

Va. (June 15, 1864) 106 

Q. 

Quartermaster general, headquarters 18 

Quartermaster's department, demeanor of officers 5'i 

Quinby, Isaac P., mentioned 28 

brigadier general 162 

R. 

Rathbone, John F., brigadier general in charge of military depot at 

Albany 18, 49, 154 

Raymond, Henry J., editor of the New York Times "jj 

Raynolds, William P., mentioned 28 

Read, John Meredith, adjutant general 14 

characteristics 16 

issues General Order 41 32 

resigns 50 

Reynolds, Joseph J., general 28 

Rice, James C., brigadier general 162 

killed in action at the Wilderness 166 



Index. 187 

PACK 

Richards, Samuel R., colonel 100, 106 

Richmond, Van Rensselaer, state engineer, mentioned 14 

Riflemen, first levy li 

Ripley, Roswell S., mentioned 28 

Robinson, Lucius, comptroller 67, 'j^, 97 

"Rocket battalion " 58 

Rodgers, John, United States Navy, at the battle of Drewrys Bluff, Va. 89 

Roosevelt, Theodore, President of the United States, mentioned 148 

Roosevelt, Theodore, appointed by President Lincoln chairman of the 

commission for the protection of soldiers' families 148, 150, 151 

Rosa, Rudolph, colonel 47 

Rosecrans, William Starke, major general of volunteers 55 

Rumsey, William, captain 160 

Russell, David A., brigadier general, killed in action at the Opequon 166 



Salm-Salm, Prince Felix 57 

Sammons, Simeon, colonel 105 

Sandford, Charles W., major general of militia 55 

Schriver, Edmund, general United States Army, sketch of life 16, 17 

resigns from governor's staff 55 

Schurz, Carl, major general of volunteers 57 

Schuyler, Jacob R., commissioned to purchase arms in Europe. .. .22, 82, 83 

Scott, Winfield, lieutenant general, mentioned (ij^ 

retired 64 

president of the " Protective War Claim Association " I5'i 

Segoine, Jesse, colonel 51. 52 

Sevi^ard, William Henry, secretary of state 26, 42, 52, 75, 123, 139, 162 

Seward, William H., Jr., brigadier general 162, 164 

Seymour, Horatio, nominated for governor 127 

elected 128 

Governor Morgan surrenders his trust to him 132 

Shaler, Alexander, brigadier general 162 

Sharpe, George H., colonel 99, 104 



i88 Index. 

Sharpshooters: page 

in 1861 and 1862 133 

in December, 1S62 127 

Shepard, Elliott F., aide-de-camp 15 

assistant inspector general 99 

colonel and in command of the Elmira depot 160 

Sheridan, Philip Henry, general, United States Army, mentioned 60 

Sherman, Thomas W., general in command of expedition to Hilton 

Head, S. C 49, 68 

Shields, James, brigadier general, mentioned 49 

Shiloh, Tenn., battle of 92 

Ship Island, Miss 92 

Sickles, Daniel Edgar, colonel and brigadier general 46 

contemptuous of state authority 47 

promoted brigadier general 162 

Sigel, Franz, general of volunteers 57 

Sitgreaves, Lorenzo, colonel, sketch of life 17 

Slavery, institution of 116 

Slidell, John, confederate agent to England 17, 69. 74 

Slocum, Henry Warner, brigadier general 162 

commands the right wing of the Army of the Potomac and the left 

wing of Sherman's in the march to the sea 163 

Smith, Charles Emory, assistant adjutant general 154 

South Mountain, Md., battle of 112 

Spottsylvania Court-House, Va 132 

Sprague, John T., major, appointed general superintendent of recruiting 

service 1 1 1 

adjutant general 140 

Springsteed, Edward A., major, killed at Reams Station, Va 100 

Stahel, Julius, lieutenant colonel and brigadier general 57, 162 

Stanton, Edwin M., secretary of war, approves project for special volun- 
teer medical corps in the field 91 

mentioned 122, 130, 139 

Starin, John H.. contractor, for feeding state troops 105 

Steele, Frederick, general 28 

Steinwehr. Adolph von, brigadier general 162 

Stetson, Lemuel, member of assembly 77 



Index. 189 

PAGE 

Stevens, Isaac I., brigadier general ^^^ 

killed in action at Chantilly, Va 166 

Stevens, John, his proposed iron clad batteries 79 

Stevens, Robert L., his floating iron clad battery 79, 80 

Stone, Charles P., brigadier general of vohinteers, sketch of his life 63 

Storehouses ^^^ 

Sumner, Edwin V., major general, died Syracuse, N. Y 166 

Supervisor of disbursements ^5 

Supplies: 

expenditures for 

contracts for 

settlement of accounts for ^44 

Surgeons, volunteer 9i 

Surgeon's mate, use of term ^5, 37 

T. 

Tammany regiment "-5 

Taylor, Nelson, brigadier general 162 

Taylor, William B., state engineer proposes to convert canals of the 

state into ship canals 7°, 79 

Thomson, William H., Dr., examining surgeon , I3S 

Tibbits, William B., brigadier general 162 

Todleben, Francois Edward, mentioned 130 

Tompkins, Daniel D., assistant quartermaster general Si, 52 

Totten, Joseph G., brigadier general of engineers 7^ 

Townsend, Frederick, colonel, his command, the Seventh New York, 

fired into by the Third New York at Big Bethel, Va 36 

Tracy, Benjamin F., member of assembly 77 

in command of confederate prisoners at Elmira i59 

Tremain, Lyman, nominated for lieutenant governor 127 

his defeat • 

"Trent affair" 69, 74 

Trobriand, P. Regis de, colonel 47 

brigadier general ^^' 

Tuthill, Selah O., adjutant ^°4 

Twiggs, David E., general, mentioned 9, SO, 96 



icp Index. 

U. 
Uniforms : . page 

proposals to furnish 19 

difficulty in procuring 20 

poor materials 20 

certificates of inspection 20 

predilection for gaudj' and unusual styles 30 

responsibility for inferior quality 41 

Zouave uniform 58 

lost or destroyed, reimbursement for 81 

requisitions for 96 

audit of claims for 144 

Union defense committee: 

organization 12 

expenses 12 

Ullman, Daniel, brigadier general 162, 164 

Upton, Emory, lieutenant and colonel 105 

brigadier general 162, 165 

Utassy, Frederick George, d', colonel 47 

V. 

Van Alen, James H., brigadier general 162 

Van Benthuysen, Charles, mentioned no 

Van Buren, John, believes the President should declare an armistice. .. . 129 

Van Buren, Thomas B., paymaster general iS, 38 

Vanderpoel, Isaac, colonel, military storekeeper 159 

Vander Poel, Samuel Oakley, surgeon general 14 

high administrative qualities displayed ■^t, 62 

organizes special medical corps 91, 135, 146 

mentioned 153 

Van Valkenburgh, Robert B., brigadier general in charge of military 

depot at Elmira 18, 49, 159 

colonel of volunteers 160 

Van Vechten, Cuyler, quartermaster general 14 

inspector general 96, 99, 143, 146 

Van Wyck, Charles H., brigadier general 162, 164 

Vinton, David H., lieutenant colonel and deputy quartermaster general. 96 



Index. 191 

PAGE 

Vinton, Francis L., brigadier general 162, 164 

Volunteers: 

considered a part of the militia 31, 34 

first division organized 32 

See also Militia. 

Von Gilsa, Leopold, colonel 47 

w. 

Wadsworth, James Samuel, appointment as major general by Governor 

Morgan repudiated by national authorities 35 

appointed brigadier general by the President 38 

sketch of his life 38-39 

nominated for governor 127 

his defeat and the causes for it 128 

his death in the Wilderness 166 

Walker, Charles C. B., captain 18 

colonel and military storekeeper 159 

Wallace, George W., appointed commissary of subsistence on General 

(Governor) Morgan's stafif, sketch of his life 96 

War committee 94 

War department, controversy with 27 

Ward, J. H. Hobart, brigadier general 162, 164 

Warren, Gouverneur Kemble, brigadier general 162, 164 

Washington: 

prevention of capture at outset of rebellion 13 

concentration of troops about 42 

Weber, Max, brigadier general 162 

Webster, Daniel, mentioned 39 

Weed, Thurlow, his hostility to recruits from the old Democratic party. . 128 

Welch, Benjamin, Jr., chief of ordnance 143, 146 

West Point, Va., success at 89 

Westbrook, Simon S., captain 104 

Wey, William C., Dr., examining surgeon 135 

Wheaton, Frank, major general. United States Army, sketch of life 17-18 

Whitney, Thomas R., member of Congress, mentioned S 



192 Index. 

PAGE 

Wilkes, John, captain, United States Navy, captures British steamer 

• Trent i", 69, 75 

Willard, George L., colonel, killed in action at Gettysburg, Pa loi 

Wilsons Creek, Mo., battle at 48, 62 

Winthrop, Theodore, major, killed at Big Bethel, Va 36 

sketch of his life 36 

Wood, Fernando, his reference to Governor Seymour's election 128-129 

Y. 
Yates, Charles, brigadier general in charge of the military depot at New 

York 18, 49, 154 

Yates, Richard, governor of Illinois 27 

Z. 

Zook, Samuel K., brigadier general 162 

killed at Gettysburg 166 

Zouaves, proposed regiment of 58 



